


Ghost of Jupiter

by juliesioux



Series: Olicity Fic Bang - Ghost of Jupiter [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dreams, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Mesa Verde, Navajo Constellations, Olicity Fic Bang, Olicity Fic Big Bang, Olicity Fic Big Bang 2015, Romantic Soulmates, Smut, Soul Bond, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, creation story, dream - Freeform, olicity - Freeform, original creation story, universe - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-11 09:32:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5622385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juliesioux/pseuds/juliesioux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the end of season three, Oliver and Felicity left for a journey that would take them from the American South West to Bali, Italy and Thailand. This story is about what happened when they left Starling and journeyed to the desert. While we don't have an explicit record of what they did, this is my personal head canon of just what happened to them on their journeys.</p><p>I wanted to explore the idea that they are part of a Universal constant that sees them reflected in ancient stories as lovers forever together, no matter the challenges or hurdles thrown in their path. While in Mesa Verde, they encounter an old woman who takes them on a special journey where she introduces them to the Navajo sky.</p><p>It is the beginning of their love story and I am really excited to share it with you. </p><p>I have marked the story E - for explicit because let's be real, they are just getting to know each other and are going to get sexy with each other A LOT.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

**Chapter One**

_Somewhere below the horizon_  
_Where time simply stops_  
_She moves with gentle grace._

 

In the dry air of the desert sparks flew from her fingertips no matter what she was touching. It was as though she was the spark of life in the condensed Universe they had created together.

There were moments when she would brush past him and static electricity in lightning form would fly from her body, electrifying him, leaving a swirling blue-fired chaos in her wake.

The day her hair stood on end, they knew that for her sanity if nothing else, they needed to move on. To somewhere wetter, filled with dense green, lushness, the scent of cedar and the ocean. Somewhere new to explore, to open up like a treasure box and dig in to try and find the bottom.

There was too much emptiness in the desert. Too much air. Too much sky. One day it paralysed Oliver so deeply and so intensely that Felicity had been forced to slap him with all of her might to snap him back to reality. For a moment, after he turned his steely gaze on her, she was positive he didn’t recognize her. He was lost to his demons, running through a maze of terror in his mind, trying to escape.

He had the look of a predator, all teeth and malice and death. She had taken a giant step away from him, scanned for the the best escape route and tried not to show him her abject terror as she imagined what he was more than capable of doing to her. When his consciousness cleared and he was able to regroup, all he saw was the look of terror in her eyes, even though she was attempting to smile away the fear and it devastated him.

Taking her hand, the one that has so recently left its mark on his skin, he lead her gently out of the vast and empty landscape and back to the car. Within its confines, he began the slow but necessary journey back to himself as he drove towards the horizon that shimmered with captured heat.

They had passed the rest of the day in relative silence. Oliver, to his credit, had tried to describe what had caused him to freeze in a state of such deep panic. He would reach for her hand and start a sentence but trail off, unsure of how to put into words the overpowering feeling of grief he felt out in that open and exposed landscape. He couldn’t hide from the things that haunted him when all he could see was blue sky and red earth.

Instead, when they finally stopped at a roadside hotel, he held her through the night and spoke about his father, how his death had left a gaping hole in his heart. He spoke at length about his feelings of guilt over not being able to save him and how he found himself terrified of not being able to hide out here in the vastness of the environment they were in. He used his body to beg her forgiveness and his love as a promise to keep her safe.

While traveling back towards the west coast they stopped just south of Farmington, New Mexico in a town called Nageezi. Oliver had found an advertisement for a cabin for rent in a roadside diner where they were having lunch and decided they should stay there for a few days. She had asked him why, because she was anxious to get to the coast and the wet, sea spray filled air, and he had simply given her a picture with a mesa on it.

It wasn’t even a colour photo! It was a crumpled black and white reprint from a community newspaper. She had no idea where it was or why he wanted to go to it, but he was determined to show her something located on a mesa in Mesa Verde, Colorado.

As they loaded up the car with water and food, Felicity got the distinct impression that Oliver was holding back something vital. It didn’t upset her, it made her curious. What was it about the mesa that pushed him to move past the nearly crippling fear he experienced out here in the desert?

Ok, she thought, if he wants to be Mr. Tall, Dark and Mysterious, she would play along...for now.

In the moments where he was out of sight, she would take the picture out and stare at it, trying to tease out just what it was she was heading towards with him. Try as she might, all she could see between the creases was a large grey mountain covered by an expanse of sky that left her dizzy and breathless.

The adobe cabin he had found was buried deep in a side canyon, off of Highway 160 in Colorado, in the shadow of Ute Peak to the west. In the morning, the  _piñon_ trees and juniper bushes helped shade the cabin, filtering the captured morning light and warming it up, radiating the sun’s heat and burning off the coolness of the night.

The cabin was one, big room with an adobe fireplace in one corner, a small kitchenette in the other and an enormous king sized bed under a giant window that faced the canyon floor. There was a separate bathroom that faced a long dried out creek bed, and it held the most amazing tub she had ever seen.

It was an enamel, clawfoot tub, positioned directly in front of the curtainless window and was large enough to easily hold them both. Their first night there, Oliver found a drawer full of candles in an old dresser in the bathroom. As darkness fell, he lit them and arranged them carefully around the tub and then drew her into a bath that would end long before the temperature of the water had cooled.

Her skin warmed as she remembered the way he had lathered his hands with her lavender soap and then ran them over her body. She remembered the feel of his hands as they slipped over her breasts and down across her belly and how easily he had lifted her out of the still hot bath when their kisses deepened and sailed them headlong into each other.

Not everyday was one of such gentle repose, and on more than one occasion, neither were their nights. On one of the first nights in the cabin, she woke up screaming. From some hidden corner of her psyche her dreams had unleashed hell. He had tried to comfort her, to reach her through the haze of terror and pain, but she fought him tooth and nail. She raked flesh from his body and left bruises on his heart. There was no way he could reach her until her shoulders slumped and her breath hitched with mournful sobs.

At first she didn’t tell him what the nightmares were about. Sometimes, she didn’t know. She would lace their hands together and wait until her tears dried before curling back into sleep. He never pushed or prodded. He waited until her eyelids fluttered open and she was able to meet his eyes.

And there in those tender moments, as she gazed into the infinite blue of his eyes where she swore she saw galaxies form and the universe expand, she knew that they were a collision of worlds.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter we meet a new, original character who will soon meet up with our adventurous duo.   
> We also get to see various moments from all three points of view which uncovers a lot of detail otherwise missed.
> 
> They arrive at the chosen spot and then things start getting interesting...

**Chapter Two**

_Sunlight slides around her_   
_Unfurling with grace_   
_Her many secrets._

I

_The sun slipped lower in the sky and dipped below Ute peak to the west of where she had laid her head for so many years now._

_It would be nighttime soon, she says to the old ones shuffling past her._

_No, she thought, no, it would soon be the sacred hour between day and night, when the spirits were restless, smelling the wind and chasing the heat of the sun from one cliff side to another._

_It was when everything fell into a trance of wakefulness. Eyes adjusted to the changing light, hearing grew sharp. Nothing moved, nothing made a sound, everything grew so preternaturally still._

_Her granny used to tell her about the change from night and day and how the moon and sun rarely met to greet one another. Everything kept quiet during the changing hour, they stopped yelling over each other and listened for the message. Then reluctantly, when silence crossed the sky, time would move…_

_She loved this time of the day._

_She could hear the scorpions scurrying into pockets of warmth, those small spaces under rocks blazed to scorching hot temperatures by the sun. She watched eagles circle and soar high above, knowing they were looking for movement on the ground. Dinner was never easy to find for them. Not much moved in the waning sunlight._

_She could hear grains of sand tumbling over and over and over one another. The cactus smelled so sweet. The wind that blew across the desert hugged the ground, like it was spreading out over the scrub and sagebrush to protect it from the nightwalkers, as she called those lost, angry souls who moaned and cried throughout the night._

_She could feel the heat of the two lone hikers, the daywalkers as she called them, the heat radiated off of their bodies long before they arrived._

_Oh, how sweet that heat smelled to her._   
_Like perfume. Like life!_

_She watched for as long as she dared before making the decision to follow the nightwalkers. They shuffled and stumbled and some of the older ones needed help getting to their homes._

_Maybe she would meet them on the path tomorrow. They looked like they would be here for a while. She could sit with them at night, maybe tell them a story or two. She knew a couple good ones._

_Yes, she says, she would tell them a story, one good story. Maybe the one about First Man and First Woman. Everyone loves a good creation story._

_No! She would tell them about how the stars were placed in the sky and about The-Revolving-Male-Warrior-with-His-Bow-and-Arrow; and his wife, Who-Carries the Fire-in-her-basket. That one was always a pleaser!_

_Yes, she says, one good story, that one._

_She shuffled off down the path, away from the two whose energy radiated like the sun, silently wishing them a peaceful night. The sky was so clear up here on the bluff overlooking the canyon below and it would soon be alight with stars just for them._

 

II

“Oliver, where are we, exactly? Not that I don’t trust you, because I do, I mean I followed you at the drop of a hat, even after you married another woman who just happened to be a lesbian who was in love with your former lover who happened to be the sister of your ex-girlfriend, but all you showed me was a battered, old picture with a mesa on it. At least I think it was a mesa. It is a mesa, right? I mean, we have walked a long way on what was supposed to be an easy hike but we climbed most of the way so I don’t think that qualifies as a hike. What I am asking is: are we done for the day?” she asked in one long breath.

He just stood looking at her in bemused amazement. He couldn’t figure out if he should answer her rambling, kiss her or keep walking so that she would run out of breath and stop asking so many questions.

He chuffed a small laugh and said, “We are headed towards Mesa Verde, a set of ruins once lived in by the ancestors of the Navajo, Pueblo and Zuni people. And yes, this is a mesa and we are done for the day.”

She showed her relief by turning towards the facing cliff face, throwing her arms up to the sky and hollering up her thanks. Her voice echoed down and all around them in the still, early evening air.

They had set out early in the morning. Too early if you asked Felicity. The sun had barely cleared the horizon and already she was in the front seat of the newly rented Jeep. After months of worry and insufficient sleep, she was NOT an early riser at the moment. She was now greedy with sleep and protested vigorously when awoken before she was ready.

Yet, knowing he would be faced with a grumpy companion for the first leg of the journey, Oliver insisted. He wanted to show her something spectacular, so spectacular that he wouldn’t actually tell her what it was or where they were actually going.

He had packed most of their camping gear in the newly rented jeep the night before, meagre as it was and had bought rations to last them at least a couple of days. He knew that she was worried about him but at the same time she was very aware of how happy and exuberant he was. He had talked nonstop for the entire drive and most of the first part of the day and had laughed at her when he saw her look of wonder and frank amusement.

Felicity had to remind herself over and over again during the first few hours that the chatterbox beside her was Oliver Queen, formerly known as Mr. Sullen and Broody. His smile lit up the pre-dawn sky and he glowed. Her heart fluttered and the pit of her stomach dropped while she touched his golden face because she just could not believe this man was real and oh, how she loved him...

Now, all she just wanted to do was set up the tent, unroll and blow up the air mattress that she had insisted on. Oliver may be content to sleep on the hard, cold earth, but she was most decidedly NOT comfortable with that kind of sleeping arrangement. Pillows, duvets and a pillow topped mattress were what she really longed for as she thought about how she wanted to do was crawl into her sleeping bag for a much deserved nap.

She turned back to him…and he was gone.

GONE?

“…Oliver?” she called out quietly. Earlier, after she had yelled out into surrounding canyon, the echoing had jangled her nerves. She could have sworn she heard another voice calling back to her and the hairs on the back of her neck had stood up in response to it.

The day’s light was slowing fading to a colourless blue where everything was a uniform grey. She could not locate him amongst the shadows, the dips and rises of the deep red earth around her, or the boulders that rose out of the top of the mesa they were to call home for the night.

He was going to have to start wearing neon yellow and pinks and not those earth tones he was so stubbornly attached to, she thought, he was IMPOSSIBLE to track in his natural environment.

Just as she was about to open her mouth to shout, he materialized out of the gathering dark with an armful of sun dried wood for a small fire.

“I know you are surefooted wherever you are, but please, try not to send me into cardiac arrest. Tell me when you are going to…disappear,” she said waving her hands towards the steep cliff sides.

Oliver quickly put the wood down and gathered her to him in a long, firm embrace. She moulded to his body, stirring him awake, and sighed deeply into his chest. She could stay right here all night, just like this, but they needed fire, food and shelter.

She looked up and into his eyes and then at the food and firewood and sighed, “I think you should deal with the food and fire but just so you know, I have no idea how to set up a tent.”

His laugh rumbled through her and echoed off the canyon floor. If nothing else, hearing him laugh eased her mind and enlivened her. His willingness to re-embrace life humbled and awed her almost every day.

 

III

_She hadn’t wandered far when she heard the young woman holler to the sky. She sounded just like the women when they sang at the ceremonies! How could that be? Was she from this area? Was she a relative? Her hair was liquid gold, how could she be a relative? Before she could stop herself, she shouted a hello back to the young woman (whom she decided to call Sun Woman because of the gold in her hair that shone so brightly even in the coming darkness)._

_Without a word to the Old Ones, she swiftly made her way back to the path that lead to the clearing at the top of the mesa. Maybe she would be brave enough to ask where they were from, who their people were. She was so shy with newcomers. She hated to interrupt anyone as they visited this place._

_It was a place to gather courage. A special place where the young people came to prepare for the rights of adulthood. Where elders gathered to prepare for the journey over to the other side. Where the medicine people prayed for the people. Warriors came here to find peace after conflicts and wars. How many cries for help had the sky heard coming from this mesa? She often wondered about that and if maybe one day she would find out._

_She slipped into her special place. A small crevice just below the lip of the tabletop, next to the path that lead down to the ridge that would take them over to the Sun temple and empty dwellings the next day._

_She looked wistfully over to the cave dwellings and, in her mind’s eye, saw the fires that would flicker in the open windows, she listened for the sounds of children as they laughed and scampered up and down the ladders that connected the homes to one another._

_She felt the sadness well up from deep within her, the sadness that had followed her from when she first left her mother’s home to set up her own. She missed sleeping with her sisters close to the fire during the cold winter months._

_She missed her family more than she missed the comfort of a soft bed and a warm body to tempt and tease her through the night. Oh, she chuckled, now how she missed that!_

_She snuck a quick peek at the man and was shocked at what she saw: He was half consumed by darkness. There was a shadow attached to him, that was trying to find a way into him. There were patterns under his skin that glowed strongest where the shadow was darkest, like they were trying to fight it without him knowing._

_The Sun Woman (look at her, she thought, she glows with sunfire from head to toe!) with him had no idea that he was carrying around a shadow with ill intent for all she saw when she looked in his eyes was love. But love clothed in shadows and followed by darkness, well, that love would not last._

_Oh, and she could tell they loved one another deeply, passionately, and completely. She did not doubt that one bit. As the night wore on and he eventually showed her part of the surprise he had brought her here to see, she listened to them making love as the universe spun around them. No…he was worshipping her. She could feel it._

_She smiled in sweet remembrance of how rapturous that act could feel. She had loved like this years ago. Oh, so many years ago. He had been so beautiful with his flashing brown eyes and long, tapered fingers. She chuckled softly to herself as she remembered the magic he would perform with those beautiful, gentle fingers, and how he could make her sing…_

_Shaking her head, more to dislodge herself from lingering too long in the past than anything else, she knew she must help him, and she resolved herself to doing just that, but first she needed to rest. She wasn’t a young woman anymore. Her old bones felt the cold at night._

 

IV

His eyes snapped open in the still moments before the night deepened and released its hold on the sky, allowing the light to return. Something had…shifted. He slowed his breathing, gently pulled Felicity closer and _listened._

_sssshhhhhhck...ssshhhhhhhrck..._

There it was again! He thought in subtle alarm. It was like the sound of two dry branches whispering and brushing against each other in a gentle breeze. But there was no breeze and there certainly was no forest with whispering trees.

He felt a soft tap on his chest and looked down to see Felicity looking at him in subtle alarm. He smiled, more out of a surge of adoration for her and how tuned into him she was, then out of reassurance.

He eased out of their embrace and silently unzipped the tent door. He needed to remain in a low crouch if he hoped to surprise whoever was out there.

Taking a moment to listen to the desert, Oliver eased out of the tent in a cat-like crouch and quickly crossed to the now cold fire. He scanned the area for intruders, intent in protecting Felicity from whatever danger was coming.

He stayed by the fire for several minutes until he heard Felicity clear her throat from their small tent. He looked back only to see her covering her mouth to silence what were sure to be huge peals of laughter and holding up his clothes from the night before. _All_ of his clothes.

Oliver, in his haste to protect her, had not put them back on. So there he crouched, tense and coiled for action, naked. Naked and now freezing in the very cold desert morning air, Oliver joined in her silent laughter and dove back into the tent.

Threat forgotten, he crawled back in their sleeping bag and pulled her roughly to him. He growled into her neck and awoke something primal deep inside her. She clawed at his back and fought him for position, as though she were trying to climb inside his skin.

When she showed this wild, feral side, he became unhinged. He kissed her a little rougher, a little longer than usual. He sucked and bit her nipples a little harder and move his fingers inside her a little deeper, while at the same time she would grasp him, massaging him to a hardness that hurt with exquisite pain, leaving him gasping in ecstasy.

He used his strength to pin her, she used her power to control him. She revelled in her ability to take charge of just how he made love to her. He moved so beautifully inside her, but she loved to draw things out, to make him work for her pleasure.

It became a battle to see who would win, to see who could outlast the other. This time, their cries rang out in unison, echoing off of the facing cliff side, and they collapsed against each other, slick with sweat, and slept through the coming dawn.

 

V

_She had tried to be so quiet when she got up from her resting place but he had heard her. He had been asleep, she thought, and he still knew she was out moving around, getting ready to meet the day._

_She narrowed her eyes and studied him as he crouched near their cold fire pit. She took in his scars, the marks of terrible violence on his body, including what looked like a giant animal bite. Someone had drawn into his flesh, leaving him a record of who harmed him._

_He was nude but not defenseless. Even in this state of undress, he was armored and protected, like the warriors she knew as a young woman. Some of the marks that glowed under the surface of his skin shifted and changed colours as he relaxed as though they were there to remind him how to protect himself from further damage. The Sun Woman couldn’t see them yet, but she could. Oh, she could see the depth of the Warrior’s wounds now._

_She had much work to do and a lot to prepare before nightfall. Besides, she was an unwelcome guest at the moment based on the sounds coming from the small tent._

_Young folks, she smiled, have so much passion! She wondered how many of his wounds were from the golden woman’s hands._


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's really long but it helps to set the stage for what is to come between the old woman and Oliver and Felicity.  
> They will soon embark on an inner journey the likes of which neither of them has ever seen or been on before.
> 
> It is also a gentle exploration of who they are when they are with each other, something that is still brand new to them both yet completely familiar.

**Chapter Three**  
  
_Diving into the Divine_  
 _Raked raw by circumstance_  
 _Dancing through time._

I

Felicity awoke to the smell of coffee and eggs cooking over a small fire. She stretched like a cat deep within the sleeping bag. She could tell by the light, that the sun was just clear of the horizon. It would be hugging the earth to the west and she wished it was sinking not sailing towards the upper reaches of the sky.

With a loud yawn, she sat up and peered through the mesh roof to see what Oliver was doing and if he was dressed. Much to her chagrin, he was up, dressed and absorbed in the dancing flames.

“I can feel you watching me, Felicity,” he said with a small, amused grin.

“Of course you can,” she rolled her eyes as she said this, “you have eyes and sensors all over your head.”

He laughed and kept his attention on the small pan in front of him.

“So today we cross the canyon floor, right?” she asked as she got dressed.

“Yup, we should be at the ruins by mid-day. We’ll make a camp on the other side.” He was too absorbed with his omelette that he was making for their breakfast that he failed to see the look of dismay developing on her face.

“But…but…I mean…I know this place is awesome and all but aren’t we going to be back at our cabin tonight? Do we have enough water and food for another night of this? What happens if we run out of food? You don’t exactly have your bow and arrows with you, so hunting is out of the question. And what about water? What if we run out? I don’t know about you, Oliver, but I can’t summon rain,” she was starting to panic and her thoughts were tumbling over and over in her head.

Oliver recognized that sound. He took the omelette off of the fire and went into the tent to wrap her in a long, gentle embrace.

“It’s gonna be fine,” he murmured into the top of her head, “there is a pump on the other side that connects to an aquifer. The park had it installed a few years ago. There is a creek down there, too. It rained just north of here recently, so there should be some water running.”

He felt her relax. Looking down at her golden hair, which was getting lighter the longer they were in the sun, he wanted to kiss her for every grain of sand in the desert. He knew they would spend their lives in love, no matter the obstacle. Even if that obstacle was a 400 ft mesa, she would remain all that his world needed.

 

II

_The campfire woke her up. When had she fallen asleep again? It didn’t matter, she figured. She was ready for the coming night._

_Oh, how the smell of smoke and cooking food hit the spot just now. It was getting harder and harder to connect to this world. She was getting to that age when it might be time to move on to the next one._

_Shaking her head, she scolded herself for feeling sorry for herself. She had so much to live for at this moment and it revolved around the strong, scarred man and his golden woman._

_She knew now who they were and she thanked Changing Woman for sending them to her. She knew Coyote had her tricky paw in it, too, but she got all puffed up with pride if you let her know she had done right._

_She went back to her home to sing and prepare the sacred sand for the night’s ceremony. She was excited and nervous. She had never done this with people from so far away. She hoped she remembered the words to the song she needed to sing as night rose and day fell._

 

III

Felicity watched Oliver as he kept stopping and turning to face the direction of the wind. He had a look on his face that was at once quizzical and slightly perplexed.

After he had done it for the fourth or fifth time, she finally had had enough. He was a long ways in front of her as she was starting to feel the effort of climbing down the mesa in what must be record time. He moved like a cat over the rocks and she, well, she did not.

She kept having to stop and stretch out the kinks in her back, or calves, or feet. She hurt from yesterday and was loose limbed from this morning. Her body was out of whack and she hurt but enough was enough. He was distracted and leaving her behind in an environment that was filled with poisonous insects and snakes.

“Oliver,” she called out, “what exactly are you listening for? You have stopped in your tracks five times since we got to the canyon floor. And could we rest for a minute? Where is the water?”

“I keep thinking I hear a woman singing. But I can’t tell if it is the wind through the trees or if I am just imagining it like I imagined the sound of someone walking towards our camp this morning,” he answered, still with a disturbed look on his face as he watched her close the distance between them.

“Could it be a bird or maybe a desert siren? I hear they sound like angels from a distance but up close look like something the cat dragged in,” she teased gently, slipping her hand into his.

Narrowing his eyes, but smiling, he kissed her forehead, handed her the water bottle and then turned to head up the path.

“Let’s see how fast we can make it to the cliffs and ruins. Time to move it, Smoak!”

She groaned and cursed his overall fitness for the twentieth time that morning. She really needed to keep her dates with the elliptical at the gym.

 

IV

_She watched the Warrior and the Sun Woman cross the canyon floor and head towards the ruins carved so lovingly out of cliffside._

_Oh, what wonders they will see tonight! The sky would be teaming with life, rippling and pulsing as the cosmic winds blow past the earth. She remembered this time of year so well. The night sky was in a period of renewal, with new stars rising from the horizon._

_It was a narrow distance, one they were crossing at a quick pace, so she was able to see where their camp for the night was going to be. He had chosen a lovely spot!_

_It was directly underneath the Sun temple, located just a few metres above their heads. The piñon trees and juniper bushes surrounded the area he had scoped out, providing shelter, firewood and much needed shade from the relentless sun. He must have been hoping to hide them from prying eyes._

_Except I can see them, she laughed. Not that it mattered as they would be asleep long before she joined their camp fire. The night would be dark, all the animals would be quiet, even Coyote, and she would lay out the sacred pattern in the sand and sing them over to the other side._

_She collected what she needed for her journey down the side of the mesa. It would take her some time to reach them as she wasn’t as fast as she used to be. Her old bones would protest, but the Warrior, he needed her._

_Patting her small pack with a gentle hand, she said a small prayer of thanks and started her journey to the ruins._

 

V

“Oliver, I am filthy. Please, tell me there is a water pump or, i don’t know, a giant hole filled with something approximating clean water in it near by,” Felicity said wearily. She was tired, sore and covered in a fine dusting of desert sand.

She turned to watch him set up their small tent. It really was small, almost too small considering how large he was in comparison to her, but they fit inside it perfectly and had that wonderful mesh roof that allowed them to sleep under the stars without being exposed to the elements.

The spot he picked was perfect. It was near the cliffside, without being too close and had piñon trees for shade and juniper shrubs all around for firewood. There was enough exposed rock for them to make a fire on but also enough earth to put up their tent.

Now, she thought, all it needs is a king sized bed, four walls, an indoor toilet and a kitchen and it would be perfect.

No, she shook her head, all it really needed, all she needed, was him. Her world finally felt balanced and complete now that they were together.

“What can I do to help?” she asked as he hammered a tent peg into the ground.

“Grab those empty water canteens and go over to the creek and fill them up. I need to purify some water for us for tomorrow,” he called out over the loud clanging produced by his hammering.

“Creek? Where is there a creek? A creek in the desert?”

“Yeah, just past the that rocky outcrop over to the right of us. Can’t you smell it? Take a towel and have a bath.”

And sure enough, she could smell the creek. It smelled the way a forest does in spring, after it has rained but before everything was in bloom. It smelled green and wet and _lush_.

Grabbing the canteens, soap and a towel, she took off in search of the creek, hoping against hope that there were no snakes in her path. If that running water was deep enough, she was going in it.

What she found when she made it around the outcropping of fallen stone was a mini oasis. A small copse of piñon trees guarded the pathway down through a small earthen rise and suddenly there was the freshwater creek. It was running lazily and not to deep, fed by rains to the north of them. It was surprising cool but that didn’t bother her in the least. She was hot, covered in dust and in desperate need of rinsing off.

At least they were alone out here, she thought, if not someone was about to get an eyeful. Without even stopping to look around, Felicity stripped out of all her clothes, underwear and bra included, and stepped carefully into the creek.

The water felt like heaven on her hot, gritty skin. It was cool, clear, clean and smelled like spring. Without a second thought, she dipped her head below the surface of the water, letting her hair fan out around her head like a halo. She unwrapped her bar of lavender soap, wishing she had actual shampoo and slowly began to wash herself clean of the past two days exertions.

Closing her eyes and turning her face to the sun, she slipped under the surface of the water and rinsed the soap off of her body and out of her hair.

She never wanted to leave this creek but Oliver had lunch waiting for her and they still needed to explore the ruins.

She spent a few minutes longer in the water, watching the way the sun played on the surface and distorted the creek bed under her feet. She finally felt like she was in her element as she soaked up the sunlight while lazily basking in the cool, fresh water. Oliver was so adaptable to whatever environment he found himself in, she would envy him for that skill had it not come from years of torture and pain.

This quieted her mind for a moment as she thought about all he had gone through yet still retained the capacity to love and share all of this with her. He had been a ghost in his own story for so long that to reconnect to it now with her was an act of supreme bravery, rooted in such vulnerability, that she almost felt unworthy of that level of trust and love.

Submerging herself once more, she rose from the water to dry herself off. Oliver needs to come here, she thought as she turned back to the creek bank where she left her towel and clothes, this place is so beautiful and impermanent. It will dry up soon and all of this will be gone.

 

VI

Oliver had laughed as she hurried past him and up the path to the creek. He knew she would be taking her time but this wasn’t an hospitable environment and Felicity had screamed at a few shadows earlier thinking they were spiders.

After a few minutes, he started after her, just to make sure she was ok and had found her way safely to the creek. He hadn’t heard any screams, so she must have made it without seeing any real or shadow creatures crossing her path.

Oliver had just stepped through the narrow path to the creek bank when she began wading into the gently running water. A few steps in and she was up to her hips, as he watched how she found a suitable rock under the surface and carefully sat down on it, allowing the water to flow around her.

She took his breath away: the way the sun bounced off her skin and hair, the way the water rippled and glittered as it found new pathways around her...she looked like a water nymph or Goddess. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

He wanted nothing more than to strip off all of his clothes and join her but something held him back. Something more than not wanting to disturb her private spa moment in the creek. The way she was bathing herself looked like something from a ritual. Every action was so deliberate, so precise. So he opted to worship her from afar instead of intruding on her sacred moment.

After a few moments, he quietly turned back and slowly headed back to their camp. He’d come back later and wash himself clean of the long hikes they had taken. Smiling to himself, he conjured up a vision of her as she emerged from the water after rinsing herself clean of the soap. Just when he thought he couldn’t love her anymore...he simply did.

 

VII

A few minutes later, her hair still dripping wet, glowing skin and with a newly found peace, Felicity walked, almost languidly, back into their shared camp and went straight up to Oliver. Pulling him down into a tranquil kiss, she murmured against his mouth, “Go get cleaned up before the sun gets any lower and I will purify the water.”

Smiling, Oliver returned her kiss. She tasted like spring, clean and crisp.  
“Well, ok then,” he murmured back, “I’d better get moving.”

Picking up his own towel and change of shirt, he made his way back down the path he just come up from a few minutes prior. Turning back for just a moment, he called, “I’ll make lunch when I get back. Please, whatever you do...don’t...don’t touch the food.”

He had to duck fast as she threw, with incredible accuracy, a clump of hardened earth at his head. It exploded into dust against one of the large, scorched boulders as his laugh echoed off of the rocks and cliffside as he made his way to the creek.

 

VlII

_She watched them from the windows of one of the long abandoned dwellings. She was close, but not too close, and could easily hide should they get too near to her temporary shelter. Not out of fear, but out of shyness, as it wasn’t time yet for her to introduce herself._

_She could see the creek from where she was and felt no shame watching the Sun Woman remove her clothes and enter the creek. All the young women of her village used to bathe together in a springfed creek. In the winter, they were quick, but in this kind of weather, they took their time. Just like the golden woman was taking her time._

_The water must feel soft and cool, she sighed quietly in remembrance._   
_Nothing felt better after a long day in the sun then cooling off in the waters from the north country._

_She watched the Warrior stand quiet guard and smiled at his reticence in joining her. He was leaving her to rejuvenate alone but not unprotected. Oh, she was looking forward to meeting these two. Their connection was so strong it vibrated the air around them. It was like there was a point between them that they rotated around. It kept them in a beautiful, flowing orbit that she could watch forever._

_With a sigh, she pushed away from the window and retreated to a corner shrouded in shadow and settled in for a nap. The night would be long, she thought, and she needed her strength for what was to come._

_The last thing she heard before drifting off to sleep was the Warrior’s laugh ricocheting off the walls and into the corners of the empty homes above him._


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is just an entire chapter of hot, sexy smut.  
> Oliver and Felicity, after a long day of quiet exploration, find their path back to each other and continue their discovery of each other's bodies in the quiet South West desert beside Mesa Verde.

 

 

art by @reyandsmoak 

**Chapter Four**

_Water tumbled stones_  
_Glitter like stars_  
_In the current._

 

I

The sun was setting behind the red mountains to the east as they finished up dinner. With a creek within walking distance, Oliver had volunteered to wash the dishes and refill their canteens to purify water for the coming morning. He knew she was exhausted from the hike but he was glad they were here.

When he returned, Felicity was sitting at the edge of the camp, watching the sunset. Within seconds, he was sitting behind her, legs and arms wrapped around her, pulling her close.

“I promise, our next adventure will be on the quieter, less physically active side,” he murmured into her hair, “somewhere with room service, fuzzy slippers, wifi and lots of red wine.”

With a sigh of agreement, she pulled his hoodie around her and did it up. She was so small that she was able cocoon herself within his hoodie with him. Carefully, he pulled his arms in through the sleeves and wrapped them around her.

He loved how warm her body felt against his. She complained that sleeping next to him was like being next to a furnace, what she didn’t know was that sleeping next to her was like sleeping next to the sun. She always burned so hot at night.

Closing his eyes and breathing her scent in ( _she smelled of lavender and the dry spicy desert air. She lit up his world and made his heart stand still and oh, how he loved her…_ ), he dipped his head low enough to plant a small kiss on her neck and felt her shiver. Moving her hair aside, he rested his face next to hers and slowly moved his hands down her arms. Kissing her behind her left ear, he moved his hands back up her arms and slowly traveled down her body. Memorizing her with his fingertips.

Her breath was steady but deepening with every small caress and every soft touch. She sighed deeply and stifled a yawn. They had spent the afternoon exploring the Sun temple and a few of the old dwellings before the sun had slanted low in the sky, the light deepened to an orangey glow.

This place was so quiet, even the birds called to each other in hushed chirps and whistles. They had explored in near silence, often hand in hand, as though the idea of being separated for too long was unthinkable. The Sun temple, where they spent most of their time, felt so welcoming from the moment they entered. Instinctively, they had entered and walked counter clockwise from the entrance to the altar on the farthest side.

Reverently, with the knowledge that the rock had been hewn centuries ago, they ran the palms of their hands over the surface of the altar in silence. Oliver felt like he was being watched but could not figure out from where and Felicity felt the pull of something on her soul, like she was been called out to but couldn’t find from where the voice could be coming from.

As they sat in the fiery glow of the desert sunset, Oliver could feel the weight of ancient history pressing in all around him. He could feel the rituals in the temple and the lives of so many who had passed through this place. It made him mindful of the time he had spent locked in self-imposed emotional exile even as this woman resting against his chest had waded into his orbit and stayed there, waiting for him. She had called him home.

 

 

II

He nuzzled his face into the crook of her neck and sighed.

“What is it, hon?” She asked softly.  
“Nothing, I’m just happy.”

“Me, too,” she said in a tone of reverence. “Look at the view. I feel like we can see into forever…”

The night sky was alive with pulsating stars, the occasional meteor and a subtle celestial ruffling of the ancient starlight across space. The Universe had movement and grace when you looked closely but he only had eyes for her.

Gently, Oliver kissed her shoulder and neck as he lifted her shirt letting his hands wander over her belly, her ticklish sides, up to her breasts. She shivered under his touch, her fingers gripping his thighs. He slowly ran his fingers over her nipples, making them painfully erect, before cupping her breasts, marvelling at how they fit so perfectly into his palms.

She arched her back ever so slightly and pushed back into him. He was taking his time, feeling every inch of her with his hands in the early evening light. The fire he had laid earlier was calm, emitting just enough warmth to keep them comfortable and gently illuminated the area around them.

He wanted to draw this out as long as possible despite how badly he wanted to taste her. They had spent hours exploring each other's bodies, discovering something new and wonderful every time. He connected to her breathing and soon they were sharing an ancient rhythm linked to their beating hearts.

He let his hands travel down to her jeans where he reached under her underwear and found her, already so wet and ready, applying just enough pressure on her sensitive clit to make her gasp. She instinctively opened her legs to give him room to explore her while he buried his face in her neck, breathing her in.

He moved his hand lower until he found her entrance. He could feel her pulsing as he lightly brushed his fingers up and down the length of her. Their ragged breath was the only sound on the canyon floor. As gently as he could, he eased first one finger, then another, inside her. She rocked her hips and ground against his hand.

This wasn’t just wanton abandon. This was something verging on divine need. She filled his night sky, she was the one who lit the way for him to find the shattered pieces of his soul, she was his strength and provided the harmony he needed to find balance. The way she responded to his touch made him ache and he felt himself growing harder and more impatient with each passing moment.

Drawing back his hand, he ran his palms up her body, over her clothes and all the way back down so that he could slowly run his hands up the inside of her thighs. Her legs had grown so strong in their travels. She complained about his speed but she was able to keep up now and he loved the way the muscles in her legs felt under his hands. She leaned her head back just enough so he could capture her lips in a scorching kiss. Her tongue touched his and he lost himself in her.

Standing up, he turned her around so that she was facing him and carried her to their tent. He took no time in removing his clothing while she did the same with hers. He had barely zipped the small door closed when she was back in his arms, kissing him with such intensity that his mind went blank and all he could see, hear, taste and feel was her.

He could feel the entire length of her body pressed against his, with his erection resting between her legs, nestled against her; her heat brought him perilously close to the verge of losing control and plunging into her. While he could only think of was how she looked earlier naked in the creek with extra care, he lowered her onto her back and pushed her legs apart with his knees. Her skin felt like satin against his lips as he left a trail of fiery kisses down her body, pausing to lightly suck and bite her nipples before making his way down to the part of her he loved almost as much as her mind.

He paused for just a small moment to inhale, deep into his lungs, the scent of her. Gently, using his fingers to reveal her to him, he plunged his tongue into her, she tasted like honey, and enjoyed the small gasps that escaped her as he licked her, rasped his tongue against her and sucked her clit with a slow building intensity. She felt amazing under his tongue, slippery, satiny smooth and all he could do was continue to worship her with his mouth.

Her legs tightened around his head and her back arched as he continued to build the pressure on her most secret part; her body was beyond her control, all she wanted was him, all she could feel was him. She ground against his mouth for one long tender moment and then came in a series of shaking spasms with his name rolling off her lips in a long, low whispered moan. He continued to grind his tongue against her, sucking gently, until she pushed him away, unable to contend with the waves of ecstasy that washed over her.

Smiling, he stretched out next to her and massaged her body until she was able to breathe normally. He loved these quiet after moments the most, when she was locked within her secret mind. He would watch her as she returned to her body and would often hold back tears when she would smile up at him with her whole body and soul and reach for him.

This time she sat up and straddled his hips. She reached for him and he rose to her embrace, sitting cross legged beneath her as she wrapped herself around his body, kissing him with a tenderness that raked him raw inside. His erect member throbbed and twitched between them as she deepened her kiss as though in search of his most hidden self.

The way it felt as she gently took hold of him and slowly guided him into her body pushed his mind into a grey space where all he could feel was the way her body throbbed around him. With slow, deliberate rolls of her hips, she drew him all the way in until he could no longer see where she began and he ended.

He closed his eyes and buried his face in her neck, he felt her tighten around him and fireworks went off behind his eyes. When he looked at her finally, all he saw was a woman clothed in the dying rays of the sun.

Slowly, he wrapped an arm around her and turned their bodies so that he was able to lay her gently back on the air mattress, never once breaking the point of connection between them. Her fingertips played gently over the arrowhead burned into his back and for a moment his back felt smooth, as though her touch had washed his body clean of the memory of violence and Ra’s Al Ghul.

Her eyes, dilated and hooded in arousal, had yet to leave his but as he moved inside her with increasing urgency, she closed them and lost herself to the sensation of him, all of him, as he slid in and out of her. As his tempo built, she wrapped her legs tighter around him, so she could control the angle he entered her body.

She had no words to describe how this felt. It just felt so right. Especially as the friction and heat grew outwards in her body, she arched against him as she came again. He never stopped or slowed his tempo, pushing her mind into a blank space, where only he existed in a space of pure ecstasy.

She never wanted this feeling to end. How his hard cock felt thrusting in and out of her, hitting so many delicate spots that all she saw were stars behind her closed eyes. It was moments like these that caused her heart to swell with such profoundly felt love and she wondered how she had survived this long without him.

Needing a moment to relax her overstimulated body, she pushed him back and onto his side. Before he could say anything, she leaned over and kissed him, teasing his mouth open with her tongue. She could feel his smile as he opened up for her and returned her kiss with a gentle passion that took her breath away.

With deliberate intent, she kissed her way down his body, lingering on his raised, tortured flesh, until she reached her ultimate destination. She rarely had a chance to do this and when she did he never let her do it for long, so she was going to savour every second.

Lightly taking hold of the base of his erect cock, she licked up the shaft, tasting herself the whole way up. When she reached the head, she circled twice around with the tip of her tongue and licked back down to where she started. She felt him twitch and she smiled knowing he wouldn’t let her stay here much longer.

Languidly, she ran her tongue around the sensitive head before drawing him in and sucking deeply in controlled pulses. Taking him into her mouth felt almost sacred. A long, deep moan emanated from him and he gripped the sleeping bag so tightly, she wondered how it didn't tear.

She repeated the same movement two more times before he stopped her by dragging her up for a long, deep kiss. He tasted them both on her tongue and quickly, almost roughly, penetrated her with one hard, deep thrust.

Holding her tightly to his chest, he used his strength to set a powerful rhythm with just a few rolls of his hips. Felicity gripped him and answered with ones of her own. Propping herself up with her hands behind his head, she was able to kiss him, taking his tongue into her mouth much like how she took him into her body earlier. The sounds coming from Oliver were primal and pushed her beyond the point of reason as she answered with ones of her own.

She felt a delicious heat in her lower body and a gentle flex as she curled in on herself and knew she was close… _too close_ …but Oliver was relentless in his command of her body. So she let go and began to grind her hips against him as he continued to plunge inside her.

Oliver held her against him, feeling her soft skin as it rubbed against his scarred and worn body, and tried to stop the wave he was riding. He wanted so badly not to lose control just yet but the way she gripped him with her body, the way she coaxed and cajoled him with her tongue and hands, he felt himself drifting closer and closer to the precipice and couldn't stop himself from diving into her.

She felt him swell inside her and, with concentration she didn’t know she possessed, she tightened around him deep inside. She heard him gasp her name in ecstasy just as she found her way to yet another electrifying orgasm and with a few uneven strokes, he found his way to his own. God, how she loved him and how it felt when he let go like this while he was buried so deep inside her.

Still holding her to his chest, he somehow managed to zip them up in the sleeping bag. She heard and felt a quiet hitch in his breathing.

“I love you,” he whispered.  
“I love you,” she whispered.

And sleep pulled them down into its silent embrace.


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver and Felicity discover one another in what they think are individual dreams. 
> 
> The Old Woman, however, is in the sacred space between sleep and wakefulness to meet them and the story of Them begins...

**Chapter Five**

  
_With fluid grace_  
_and feverish intent_  
_they are joined._

 

I

_She awoke to near darkness. The sun had almost totally disappeared beyond the horizon and all the normal sounds of daylight had ceased. She listened carefully and could hear only the Nightwalkers coming home. Even Coyote had gone to bed, tucking herself away in a cave far away from the horizon._

_Slowly, she crept out to a ledge and peered down at their camp. The Warrior and Sun Woman were deeply asleep, tangled together in their sleeping bag. As soon as the sun was gone, she could begin._

_In the meantime, she gathered up her small pack and quietly made her way down to where they slept. She knew she would have to be extremely quiet because of how vigilant and tuned in the Warrior was, but at the moment he was deeply asleep. No doubt helped to such a restful state by his golden woman, she chuckled._

_These two sought comfort in each other like no one else she had ever met! It was like they were making up for lost time, she chuckled softly, all this love making under the stars, in the sunlight, they were consecrating the earth each time!_

_No matter, she thought, it is time to start. Time to introduce myself to them in a proper way. Find out who their people are, where they come from, who they are going to be._

_Standing opposite the tent’s doorway, she carefully began laying out the pattern of the Featherway. This way begins in darkness and pushes up to the light. Her favourite part was when Coyote would come along and play her part in scattering the stars like seeds across the night sky as the First Man and Woman watched in dismay._

_That Old Coyote, she thought with a chuckle, always so impatient and ready to create chaos. But first I need to go find the Warrior and Sun Woman in their sleep world._

_Sitting down in front of her sand painting, she closed her eyes and started to sing the ancient song that would guide her straight and true to the two people she needed to find._

_This song was so old that she wasn’t sure she would remember all the words, but soon the world got fuzzy around the edges and the sky merged with the earth. She looked up and there they were, emerging slowly from edges of her horizon._

_The Warrior looked confused. He looked at his hands and arms, seeing for the first time how his skin glowed with symbols and ancient writing under his skin. He looked around wildly, searching for something he could recognize. His eyes were the colour of the sky when the hour grew late and the stars began to peek out and dance along the edge of the earth._

_His eyes found the Sun Woman. She was standing opposite a star cluster that had come down to rest gently under a giant redwood tree. Every time she breathed out, the stardust swirled and shot off into the air, like sparks from a fire, falling into a basket that laid at her feet. She was reaching to touch a cluster of stars when he called to her._

_When they looked at each other, the stars dimmed in envy. She was his North star, and he was her’s. The fixed point between them allowed them to float in a tethered orbit, one where she could curve into him for protection or fly off out on her own._

_She could watch their celestial dance forever but she had work to do. These two were connected by the songs the Universe sang at the time of her creation. Coyote, that miserable old thing, was waiting in the distance, yowling up at a black hole located in the centre of the Galaxy as though it were Grandmother Moon, looking to interfere with the old woman’s work._

_Not this time, Coyote, she thought, not when I have so much to do and remember. You go keep thinking that black hole is Grandmother Moon, keep yourself occupied. I am looking at the beginning of time over here and need to concentrate._

_And with that, she cast her final grains of coloured sand into the cosmic background and continued her song._

 

_II_

_He opened his eyes and saw a pathway lit by galaxies. He had had vivid dreams in the past but this was...different. He could feel the cold solar winds, the air tasted metallic and as he reached out to find the edges of his world, his fingertips grazed the white hot centres of passing stars._

_He stepped forward, leaving eddies in the currents of the air as it flowed past him and searched for the Earth in the vast expanse of nothingness that surrounded him. He felt panic beginning to rise in his chest. This dream felt alien and strange. He felt like he wasn’t alone but couldn’t see anyone or anything except stars as they blinked in and out of focus._

_The silence that surrounded him felt like it had weight and it pressed in on him, leaving bruises on his body. He wished that Felicity were there with him to take the cold ache of loneliness from his bones. Wrapped in her embrace, he felt safe, complete and healed._

_He looked down at his feet to see if maybe, somehow he had created a world to stand on, but instead he saw the pattern of words and symbols trapped beneath his skin that gently illuminated his body._

_Well, he thought, this was something new. He could not remember where he got them or who would have had the opportunity to stamp his skin in such a permanent way. What they meant was beyond him but they seemed to have a mind and power all their own._

_He wracked his brain, trying to remember where these could have come from. Was it during his stays on Lian Yu? Was it in Hong Kong? In Nanda Parbat?_

_The longer he studied them, the more confused he got. Some of the symbols were Mandarin, some were Cyrillic, some were Thai. The clearest one read: เธอ มีน้ำหนักเบาและ ความรัก but he had no idea what it actually meant._

_It glowed in rich hues of orange and red and seemed lit from within. It brought him such peace to stare at it. He felt it in his heart, like it was written on more than just his body, like it was written on his soul. Instinctively, he knew it was about Felicity. Only something this powerfully good could be about her._

_Slowly, the edges of his inner world began to brighten and out of the gray haze, she emerged far off in the distance. She glowed like the sun in his dark sky. She had yet to see him as she was enraptured by a giant tree that held within its branches the pulsing light of stars._

_He watched the stardust swirl and spark around her. She glowed in the starlight, pulsating with life and light, drawing him to her. He longed to lay his head in her lap, to rest his body on a bed of stars. He would give up his world just to dream with her._

_From his vantage point at the edge of her galaxy, he watched Felicity toy with the sparks of fire coming from the star cluster she was so intent on studying. He wondered what would happen if he called out to her in his dream voice._

_So he called to her. Expecting her to fade to dust or shape shift into a memory but instead, she turned around and smiled and all the stars dimmed._

 

 

_III_

_Felicity opened her eyes and all she saw was a deep, velvety blackness. Not a single speck of light reached her but there was a sound, a roaring in her ears that surrounded her. It battered her, left marks on her skin, and just as suddenly as it roared to life, it ended._

_She felt the first stirrings of panic rise in her chest when she saw a glimmer of light growing larger on the edge of her vision. It seemed to be moving steadily forward towards her._

_With all the concentration she could muster, she calmed her breathing. Her heartbeat was so loud in her ears it was like it was a living entity that was surrounding her. Every beat echoed off of the curves of her body. Yet all she cared about was the light that was slowly approaching her._

_She looked down to see what was beneath her feet and saw the gently illuminated curve of the Earth. It was so beautiful. She felt like she was watching the beginning of time, a moment so full of life and possibilities that to be a witness to it was both humbling and awe inspiring._

_She reached her arms out and her fingertips grazed the rough bark of a tree in a space where nothing had existed a moment before. She stepped closer and felt the softness of grass beneath her feet. She smiled at her dreamself and the special attention she was paying to the smallest details._

_She was creating an island of tranquillity in the vastness of space. The tree’s boughs were loaded with stars, bending them towards the soft patch of earth she was envisioning. They were like grapes, ripe and ready for picking._

_She reached for the basket she knew would be at her feet. What if she could pick them like apples or grapes? What would they feel like in the palm of her hand? Would they burn? Every breath she took resulted in a showering of stardust which coated her skin in a fine dust or it sparked and jumped like fire._

_One particular string of stars had her complete attention. They hung off one of the lowest boughs in the shape of a “w”, with the centre star not really being a star at all. The closer she looked at it, the more like an owl it became with a cluster of stars forming the body and two enormous stars standing in for the eyes._

_There was yet another star cluster in the very centre of the owl and it glittered like rubies and sapphires when the light plays across their surfaces. She was reaching for it when she heard a sound._

_She froze and listened with her whole body, trying to and catch the sound should it come back to her. The breeze of a billion stars in motion caressed her and caused the stardust to swirl around her in a great cloud. She was so sure she heard her name being called as though across a great distance._

_Turning, she scanned the expanse of space and spotted him. He was the light she had been watching so intently earlier. He glowed so brightly against the blackness that surrounded them. When he smiled at her, light burst from within him and he lit her pathway home. Sometimes she thought that loving him was like loving the stars themselves._

_As they journeyed towards each other, with galaxies and nebulas scattering in their wake, neither one saw the old woman sitting so patiently in the small stone room on the blue and green planet underneath them._


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the very heart of the story. It is the longest chapter of the story and tells the Origin Story of Oliver and Felicity as told to them by Manaba, the old woman in the desert, who greets them in the space between wakefulness and dream.
> 
> Oliver and Felicity discover a whole new dimension to their relationship through this experience that takes place in their collective unconscious.

**Chapter Six**

_Supple, tender touches_   
_Clothed in starstuff_   
_His love sparks._

 

 

I

She was real _(he was real), they thought._  
How could this be? _(She was dreaming, wasn’t she?)_

_There would be no easy way of doing this, she realized. The Warrior and the Sun Woman weren't yet ready to see that they weren't dreaming but instead were in that infinite space between sleep and wakefulness. That beautiful, vast space where the spirits held shape and power, where life truths were revealed and honoured._

_Looking at them, she knew it was time to begin._

_“Hello,” she said, “welcome to my home.”_

_Both of them turned to look at her, then back to each other in confusion. She watched their silent conversation in amusement. It is not everyday that you find yourself in your lover’s dream as though it were a shared space._

_Or in a home when a moment ago you were out under the stars, or actually touching them, while floating free across the cosmic sky._

_With every passing second, she grew stronger and more able to construct her home from memory. She quietly re-created the woven grass and reed blanket her mother made for her when she left home and placed it on the earthen floor opposite her. She re-made the clay pots, that lined the wall behind her, made by the women of her family over the course of generations._

_She looked at the fire pit and instantly a fire began to glow in the centre. She looked up to the moon and a roof slowly knit itself across from wall to wall. Coyote howled in protest but she silently laughed and enclosed them into her sacred space._

_Motioning with her left hand, she invited them to sit opposite her._   
_“Get comfortable,” she said, “we have a long way to go tonight and a lot to learn from one another.”_

_The Warrior turned around to make his way to the blanket together with the Sun Woman, taking her hand in his so that their souls were linked together._

 

II

Oliver was slowly coming to grips with where he was and what was happening to him and Felicity. He had been through experiences like this in the past but the intensity of the colours, the way everything felt, were throwing him out of balance. He felt her grip on his hand and knew she was perilously close to the edge of sanity. They were asleep but awake and had been transported to the space between dream and reality.

Whatever this old woman wanted to do, she needed there to be no limits as to what was seen, felt and done. By all of them. Something big was happening here, he felt it like a current of electricity under his skin. He glanced down at his arms and saw the shifting, glowing and changing spells that had been cast into him.

The old woman sitting across from had yet to speak. She was watching Felicity with a curious squinting stare. It was like she was protecting her eyes from a bright light but was too entranced to look away.

_Shí éí Manaba yinishyé,_ she whispered in their ears. _I am called Manaba._

In her most formal voice, she introduced herself, “ _Kinyaa’áanii nishłį́. Tótsohnii bashishchiin. ‘Azee’tsoh dashicheii. K’aa’dine’é dashinalí. Ákót’éego diné asdzáán nishłį́.”_

_She smiled at the two facing her, trying not to laugh as she realized she was still speaking in her Mother tongue. It just felt so relentlessly good to be speaking again, that she had lost herself in the moment._

_In an effort to be understood, she whispered the shorter version of her peoples’ proper way of making an introduction into their ears, “I am from the Towering House Clan born for Big Water Clan. My mother was of the Big Medicine People born for the Arrow people. In this way, I am a Navajo woman.”_

_With a deep breath, she settled back onto her blanket and waited._

 

III

Oliver heard the old woman’s voice with his body. It surrounded him, cushioning and echoing like thunder through his mind leaving him speechless. She said words he didn’t understand and yet he was able to hear them in his mind in English.

He watched her carefully. He took in her long white hair, so carefully plaited with strings of turquoise beads strung throughout. He observed the rawhide ties that bound the ends of the braids together and the lack of any metal anywhere on her body or in the shelter she had constructed before his eyes.

She was old. Older than anyone he had ever known or would know. She was ancient in the truest sense of the word. She most likely had walked the earth during the reign of Constantine the Great and died before the final fall of Rome. Yet here she sat, smiling at him and Felicity across a gentle fire. She was waiting for them to introduce themselves but he had no idea how.

 

 

IV

Felicity froze. The moment the old woman started to speak and she realized she was hearing the words inside her mind, Felicity’s brain short circuited. This couldn’t be happening, could it? How could she be here with Oliver AND this old Navajo woman?

Wait, she thought. How did she get here? How is that even possible? Why is she staring at us like that?

And, like dawn spilling over the edge of the earth, Felicity knew what she was waiting for and how she should do it.

Reaching behind her, Felicity stretched her hand back into her dream world, where she left the giant tree with boughs loaded with stars, and grasped the woven basket she had left there.

Careful not to upend it and dump its fiery contents into the galactic winds, she places it on the blanket in front of her. She wasn’t sure if Manaba would hear her, but in her gentlest voice, she begins to speak.

“I am Felicity Meghan Smoak. I am and was born for the Smoak clan, who in turn came from the 12 Tribes of Israel,” she said as she reached into the seething fire in her basket in search of a star that glittered like a diamond.

She whispered quietly to it so that it held the secrets of her parentage, ones she tried to never spoke aloud, and then with reverence she held it out for the older woman as a gift.

With a smile, the old woman took the glittering star from her and put it in a small leather pouch that was hanging around her neck.

Together, they turned to face Oliver. He was staring intently at the fire when his voice suddenly filled the room, the old woman’s ears and Felicity’s heart.

“I am Oliver Jonas Queen. I am from the Dearden clan and born for the Queen clan. I have lived in the sheltered world of Starling City and the ruins of Lian Yu,” he said without speaking.

Reaching back into his dream world, he located his quiver and bow. They had been left under the tree Felicity had created from star dust. He knew she would have them, created from memory and forged with love, knowing this made his spirit sing. From deep within the quiver, he pulled out a planet made of molten stone. He rolled it around in the palm of his hand, feeling its heat and weight. Whispering quiet words, filled with the truths he can only think to himself, he focused all of his memories into his tightly clenched fist. The planet sizzled, snapped and popped as it slowly grew denser, harder and smaller.

Bringing his hand back within the earthen home, Oliver extended his closed fist towards Manaba’s outstretched palm. He dropped the planet into her hand, watching as it cooled, marvelled at the way it glowed at its centre. It was still so achingly alive as she dropped it into the pouch around her neck.

Manaba smiled. The planet had glowed like a ruby in her palm. She listened to it as it continued to crackle and cool from within the depths of the leather pouch and wondered just what it would become over time.

From somewhere out in the distance, Coyote howled. She was getting anxious that one, Manaba thought, time to get moving so these two can greet the coming dawn.

 

 

V

 

_Manaba looked at Oliver. He was studying her intently, like he was memorizing her face for later._

_He was a tricky one this one, she thought. Coyote and him, now what a pair they’d make. They’d wear themselves out trying to outdo each other in tricks, games and random violent acts._

_But this one, he was a warrior discovering himself to be a Hero. It was all in how he carried himself, how he viewed the world around him. He walked into her home backwards without even knowing it! He thought he was looking straight ahead!_

_He was a rare find, he was a vein of turquoise in the quartz. He was what those crazy buffalo hunters to the north called a heyoka. They were fearless, tricksters and shamans, warriors and fools. They carried so much medicine, even her medicine people feared them!_

_Yes, she thought, this one was different. No wonder Coyote was so curious! She loves herself a good challenge, always sticking her nose in places it don't belong._

_Now the Sun Woman, this Felicity, she was something else. She wasn’t powerful, she WAS power; she hummed and thrummed with it. It was in her blood, her breath, her body._

_Manaba could hear soft shuffling sounds coming from outside her hogan, her home. The old ones, the ancient ones who lived in this plane of existence, were drawn to Felicity’s power. Hoping to use some of it for themselves._

_Narrowing her eyes, she sets her eyes on Oliver, who was still studying her with a quiet smile and gentle eyes. His skin glowed with messages that moved like liquid around his body, chasing that shadow that clung to him. It was time to push that darkness out._

 

 

VI

 

Oliver felt a rush of adrenaline when Manaba looked at him. It wasn’t so much fear as trepidation that gripped him and the symbols under his skin shifted and glowed in response.

She was pulling at a secret part of him and his entire body screamed in protest. There was a roaring in his ears and he had to fight against the instinct to throw his head back and howl at the invisible night sky. He so badly wanted to join Coyote outside but knew he couldn’t. If he gave into that primal howl set so deep within his soul, he would never be able to return to his body.

Felicity’s hand in his ground him to this plane of existence. There was a fixed point in time between them and it burned with pulsating energy. But still, even though the world outside had fallen silent, that coyote song hummed in his veins.

VII

Felicity sensed the subtle shift in Oliver’s energy when Manaba focused her stare on him. It was like a gentle electric current humming under her skin when she touched him. It didn’t shock her but she could feel it deep within.

What did shock her was the way his skin seemed to glow with symbols and messages. It was like they were part of him and they undulated in a freewheeling pattern as it circled around and around his body, just hovering under his skin.

The one she kept seeing over and over was **เธอ มีน้ำหนักเบาและ ความรัก.** Everytime she looked at Oliver, that message would fade into view like she was the only one who was supposed to see it. Yet she had no earthly idea what it meant. She knew it was Thai but that was the extent of it.

The unspoken conversation between Oliver and Manaba was fascinating to watch even though she kept getting distracted by the shuffling and scuffling sounds coming from outside the door to the hogan. There were people out there and they were calling softly to her, asking her to come outside and tend to her tree. They were begging her to come join them in the celestial garden.

Taking a deep, steady breath, Felicity calmed herself and focused her attention onto the fire that crackled and smoked in the centre of Manaba’s home. With her fingers laced together with Oliver’s she felt herself becoming grounded by his presence.

It was only then, in that moment of peaceful calm that she noticed a subtle outline of a message under her skin. It read “ **Ko te marama me te aroha ia”** and while the meaning was unknown to her at the moment, she knew it was about Oliver and that it would be revealed before she left this sacred place.

 

VIII

 

_“You,” Manaba began, “you both need to find your place in the world. You survived your Long Walks. You have made it almost to the end of this part of your journeys. Now you need to see where you fit.”_

_Reaching into the small pouch that hung from around her neck, Manaba pulled out what looked to be a softly shifting orb of light whose colours kept changing from subtle oranges and blues to deeper reds and purples. There was a ring of ghostly white surrounding it but in the centre there was a brilliant white star that in turn was surrounded by a glowing white ring. It looked like a celestial eye floating gently above the palm of her hand as she held it out for Oliver._

_Oliver reached out and took it from her. He drew it close, studying it for a moment, feeling it sizzle and pop in his hand, like it was cooling off and releasing steam. Manaba gently cleared her throat to call his attention back to her._

_I have too much to tell these two, she thought, he can look at his gift later. Maybe look at it with Coyote because she was sure Coyote would be waiting outside for him. That trickster would know what form to take to shift into his view._

_“There once was a time, back when the First People were just emerging into this world, when the sky was black. Not a star in the sky, no moon, nothing but a deep, inky blackness,” Manaba began._

_“But the Old Ones, they were tired of looking up at the night sky, all dark and lifeless, so First Man and First Woman sat down and started to think. What could they put up in that sky? What could they do to make it look like it should?” Manaba spoke low, making Oliver and Felicity lean towards her so they could hear, so she was careful to keep the fire from getting too hot._

_“So they sketched out their plans in the sand, making sure to protect them from the wind and went out into the desert to collect pieces of mica. They were going to use those pieces to place in the night sky,” she continued, “but they needed help, so they called out to Coyote, Blue Corn Maiden, Wind Boy and the Pollen Boys to come and help.”_

_At the mention of her name, Coyote howled in protest at being kept outside. One of these days she was going to figure out how to get inside, Manaba thought, and oh what a mess she would make._

_“First Man placed the first star. He affixed it to a spot way at the top of the sky over the earth and called it Náhookòs Bikò‘,” Manaba gestured up to her left, “and it is rests above where the ground was frozen all year round and the animals all had white fur. That one star, it would be the one constant that all the others revolved around, it never moves. Then he placed seven stars up there, looking like an empty ladle but it is really a man pulling back his bow. It always points to that one brilliant star up there in the top part of the sky.”_

_Manaba paused at this point in the story and reached deep down into the leather pouch around her neck. It was like she always knew where to find what she was looking for in the limitless expanse of its interior. Within seconds, she found the object she wanted and withdrew it between her thumb and forefinger._

_Motioning to Felicity to reach out her hand, Manaba placed what looked to be a brilliant, blazing ball of pure white light in the centre of her palm. It illuminated Felicity in blue white light, smoothing her silhouette so that she looked as though she and the light were one._

_“That there in your hand, that star, is the one all the other stars revolve around. It is pinned to the top of the sky, keeping it in place. It lets us figure out where we are, even if we are lost in the middle of the desert,” Manaba explained._

_Gently, Felicity placed the star in her basket, which was between her and Oliver, where it pulsed with almost infinite life. She felt its pull and heat as it glimmered and shone._

_“Now First Woman, she had some thoughts as to what should be up in that sky,” Manaba continued, “so she placed five stars in a stretched out ‘w’ shape. It looked like a woman holding a basket and its centre star connected directly to that north star.”_

_There was a quiet scratching coming from behind Manaba. With a deep sigh, she said, “That there is Coyote who is trying to get in from underneath the wall instead of going around and using the door like a proper visitor. She gets so impatient when I get to this part of the story.”_

_With that, the scratching stopped and they listened to Coyote whine just a little before falling silent beyond the walls of the hogan. They didn’t have to see her to know she was sitting as still as a restless Coyote could, waiting for the next chapter to unfold._


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter that reveals the messages living under Felicity and Oliver's skin and the rest of their story as revealed by the Navajo creation story. Manaba shows them how they are connected throughout time and will always find each other.
> 
> This is the part where their soul connection is made known.

**Chapter Seven**

_With delicate intention_   
_She rises from ashes_   
_A roaring Phoenix._

 

I

_Pausing to sip some water, Manaba was gearing up for the most important part of the tale, where she could finally address the growing dark in her home. She needed to show them who they were so that he could shake loose of the tendrils of shadow that stubbornly clung to his shifting skin._

_“Now Coyote, she came last to that star setting party. She watched and waited for her turn but those Pollen Boys, they were getting in her way, taking up so much time and bickering back and forth,” Manaba continued._

_“That Coyote was getting afraid, maybe she wouldn’t have a chance to put her pieces of light in the sky, so she snuck up between First Woman’s legs and grabbed hold of one corner of the blanket and without so much as a warning, Coyote shook that blanket with all of her might! Scattering the stars in a chaotic whirlwind from one edge of the horizon to the other!”_

_Manaba demonstrated by shaking out a few pieces of mica from a small bowl at her feet and threw them up to the ceiling where they hung at random heights and distances from each other over their heads. Coyote howled far off in the distance, happy that her part had been told to the two golden strangers._

_In the shimmering light, Oliver and Felicity each saw the constellations described by Manaba as well as the star that held the sky in place. More of the story was to come but each was left puzzled as to why she wanted them to know exactly where those two constellations were._

_As if to answer their unspoken question, Manaba continued the story, “Coyote was so pleased with the results. She yipped and howled and danced for hours under the light of the moon and then slipped below the horizon just as the sun started to rise. When you look at the far end of the world, you can see her in the night sky, just peeking up over the edge, where she dances until dawn. But oh, what a mess she made before she left! Just look at the constellations made first by First Man and First Woman and all the stars that surround them!”_

_Oliver and Felicity did just that. It was like the original stars in the formations were now hiding other stars behind them but they all had their own gravity, weight_ _and cosmic journey. They rotated around each other at different speeds and glowed with different intensities._

_Coyote had made a glorious, frenetic, chaotic mess of the sky for all eternity but, oh, was it beautiful to behold..._

 

II

_Manaba stood up and reached out her hand to Oliver, motioning him to take it and stand up beside her._

_“You are Náhookòs Bi’kà’, the Revolving Male Warrior with His Bow and Arrow. You were placed in the sky by First Man himself. You are the one your family looks to for protection, for leadership. You are a powerful one, charismatic and persuasive. I’ve never seen eyes like yours in my entire life! But oh, if I had as a girl…,” she chuckled, making Oliver blush furiously when she winked and smiled at him._

_“You are the kind of man that women look for but you sought out the woman this time. I’ve watched how you look at her,” she said as she motioned with her head towards Felicity, “she gives you the balance you need to find your path once and for all. You both bring that goodness to each other.”_

_Reaching down to Felicity, she drew her up and had her stand on the other side of her. Gesturing with her hand, she pointed at the series of stars that First Woman placed in the sky, urging Felicity to look at them._

_From a distance, Felicity thought she saw all the changes made when Coyote threw the mica into the heavens with no attention to detail. But up close...up close she could see the nebula that looked like an owl, just like on her tree! There was a universe contained within the hidden spaces and her heart soared when she exhaled gently across them and they shimmered and shone with movement and life._

_“First Woman placed you in the sky and named you Náhookòs Bi’áád, the one who brings balance and stability, you are the Woman-Who-Carries-The-Fire-In-Her-Basket. But Coyote, that trickster, she changed you when she tossed that blanket. She put that fire there for you to hold. You revolve around Náhookòs Bikò‘, that North Star, along with the Warrior,” Manaba patiently explained._

_“But Coyote added so many more stars to your form. She loaded you up! Filled your basket with love and responsibilities, ones that have helped you become the balanced, regenerative force of nature that you are,” Manaba found herself growing mesmerized by the Sun Woman’s glow as she explained to her just where she was in cosmic sky._

_“You don’t need weapons like that one,” she said as she motioned over to Oliver, “all you need is what is in your mind and the tools of your trade. If you were from my time, all you would need is a grinding stone and a stirring stick, but I think maybe you have different tools. No matter, young one, you are the Warrior’s grounding force. You help him find that inner strength and light by focusing him. You two are paired in the universe, the sky, the heart and the soul.”_

_Manaba stepped back and joined their hands together under the North star’s shining light._

_“This star will always connect you into one. As you revolve around it, balancing each other, it unites you, helping you bring peace and harmony to the world around you. You both have such power!” Manaba exclaimed, “Always remember, no matter how fast you move, you will always revolve around the North Star and each other.”_

_She left them to ponder their place in the celestial order and watched the glowing messages under their skin shift and multiply. There was so much she didn't understand about where in time they came from, but she knew where they were going and that she could help them get there._

 

 

III

_Manaba carefully lowered herself back onto her blanket. She wasn’t a young girl anymore and all this up and down stuff was making her joints ache. The desert night was a cold one and it clung to her bones._

_A strong cup of maple and sage tea would do the trick, she thought, I should make some before retiring for the day._

_“Now, both of you,” she began as she gestured for them to retake their places on the blanket across from her, “tell me about them messages you have chasing themselves under your skin. Where did you get them?”_

_Oliver looked down at his arms and saw that they were swirling with colour, light and energy. The same message kept popping up over and over until he gradually saw that it was changing._

_First he saw **เธอ มีน้ำหนักเบาและ ความรัก** glowing in a beautiful sunlit yellow. Then it shifted to **เhอ lน้ำหlกเบาและ ควาgรัก** in a whirlpool of blues and greens. It was alive and trying to present itself in a way he could understand._

_“I don’t know where this came from. All of my scars have stories and I remember each and every one. This one,” Oliver held his hands up in confusion, “I have no idea what it is or why it is.”_

_As they watched it, it once again changed from **เhอ lน้ำหlกเบาและ ควาgรัก** to เ **hอ lน้vหlกเบoและ ควvgรัก** to **shอ lน้vหlกeบoaลd ควvgรัก** in explosions of yellows and deep purples and fiery reds._

_The message was getting clearer, more and more of it was being revealed as they watched his body emanate light and colour and the letters rearranging themselves in order to be read._

_At one point, as Oliver’s arms looked like a kaleidoscope of fireworks patterns, Felicity reached over to lightly stroke his arm. She wanted to see if she could feel the way his skin moved with the constantly shifting message._

_And it was like a bomb had gone off in the room as Oliver’s secret skin exploded in a blinding flash and revealed it’s meaning. The light pushed out into the rounded corners of the hogan, it crept through the crevices and spilled out into the surrounding darkness. It was alive and moving, seeking out the darkest of spaces and flooding them with light so as to chase away all the shadows._

_In a blaze of warm orange light, **shอ lน้vหlกeบoaลd ควvgรัก** became **She Is Light And Love.** The Thai script pulsed in indigo and pink, it swirled in red and green, and it slowly faded to gold and white before disappearing into his body._

_Both Manaba and Felicity were spellbound by Oliver and the ferocity of the light coming out of him. He made no sound during the entire sequence of events as all of his attention had been on Felicity and the way her skin glowed in response to his._

_Reaching out to her, he lightly ran his fingertips down her arm, tracing the path of the message **Ko te marama me te aroha ia** as it ebbed and flowed around her body._

_“I have absolutely no idea what that is or how it got...under my skin,” Felicity said as she watched it, “I’ve never seen it before now. Is it in Maori?”_

_Manaba had a sudden flash, a vision of time and existence, where she saw them after their creation by First Man and First Woman._

_Oh, she thinks, I can see them. I can see them throughout time, living and loving on the earth and connected to each other in the sky when they are resting, waiting to rejoin the new world._

_They had come from the people that navigated the warm, blue waters to the south, they had come from the people who forged the first pathways through the north, they had walked the same trails as the people who built the great stone wall to the east and had survived the deserts the ancient people to the west had conquered and thrived in._

_Their story was far from done, she thought, but they had found each other in all the noise and confusion of this life and that was all that mattered._

_Oliver continued to trace the path of the Maori words down Felicity’s arm. When it reached her fingers, he threaded his through hers and looked up, met her eyes and smiled._

_And it was like lightning suddenly filled the small space they were in. There was the sharp smell of ozone and a loud crackling filled their ears as the air sizzled and sparked. Felicity’s hair started to rise in response to the dry, static-filled air._

_The words that swam beneath the surface of her skin unscrambled in a snap of electric white light, the letters pulsed and shifted between white, red, blue and green. The message surged and writhed with chaotic life while revealing itself to them._

_**Ko te marama me te aroha ia** slowly changed to **Ko te liama me ane loha ie** in a soft hazy shimmer of oranges, glowing in the colours of a sunset on a clear night._

_**Ko te liama me ane loha ie** swirled in ocean blues and revealed more of itself in soft waves of colour that matched her eyes. Felicity looked down and saw **Ke te liagha me ane lohe ie** surface and subside on her arms. Whatever it was, it felt effervescent as it swirled around her._

_Oliver reached over and gently stroked her hair and her skin flashed with blue lightning in response. **Ke te liagha me ane lohe ie** burst out from the depths of her body and revealed itself to all three of them in a blaze of white light._

_**He is Light and Love** escaped its corporeal hold and then faded away back into her body. As the light it generated faded, they could hear the sound of distant drums and the voices of many men and women singing. The old ones were celebrating the emergence of their truths._

_“How...how is it that both Oliver and I have the same message under our skin like some kind of magic disappearing eight ball ink tattoo?” Felicity asked, “And why was mine in Maori and his in Thai?”_

_Oliver squeezed her hand in gentle assurance and suppressed a quiet chuckle. He loved that she had no filter and said out loud exactly what she wanted to no matter the situation. Even here, in this shadow of a world, she was able to be who she was with no apologies._

_“Oh young one,” Manaba began, “it’s because when the First People emerged into their world from the shadow of the one before it, they brought with them ideas and dreams. Like this place we are in and the both of you. And they reached up to the sky to make sure the rest of us could see you.”_

_“But they left reminders for you under your skin, so that you would never lose sight of how important you are to each other and the world that knows you. Even if the language is strange to your eyes and ears, it will speak to your heart,” she patiently explained._

_Turning her attention to Oliver, she seemed to be looking just past him. It was as though she were trying to see around all his corners._

_It was unnerving. He felt as though she was looking into him and seeing all that he had done rather than seeing him and all that he could do._

_“Can you still feel them?” She asked him._   
_“Feel...them?” Oliver was more than a little puzzled._   
_“The shadows,” Manaba answered, “those tendrils that hug you close in dark times, those pieces of the past you’ve been trying to shake loose.”_

_Oliver closed his eyes and searched his mind, body and soul for the darkness he knew used to reside there. That darkness used to be his second skin. It used to cover him like armor where he would welcome its cool embrace._

_But it was gone. He no longer felt its oily residue resting against his tortured skin._

_He opened his eyes and saw, for the first time since entering Manaba’s hogan, the brightness of the fire and the way Felicity glowed just for him. No longer was the space around them draped in shadow, no longer did his skin feel gritty and stained by the violence and pain of Lian Yu, Nanda Parbat and Hong Kong._

_Manaba smiled at him. Now he could continue on his journey, he was ready to accept the Sun Woman as his partner and enter the new world by stepping out from the shadow of this one. The Sun Woman had been ready for quite some time already and her patience was being rewarded._

 

IV

_“It is time for you to go,” she said to them, “you are ready to join your journeys together and walk as partners and companions in your world. Leave everything here, your basket, your quiver, all of it.”_

_“Even this?” Felicity asked as she held out her brilliantly glowing star._

_“Yes, even that. You will find what you need when you get back to yourselves,” Manaba explained as she stood up, “but first you need to cleanse yourself in preparation to emerge into the next world.”_

_Reaching behind her, Manaba touched the hogan wall. Singing softly, she beat her palm against it three times. The sound of her hitting the earthen walls reverberated through the floors and up into Oliver and Felicity’s bones._

_As Manaba continued to sing, the wall slowly faded from view revealing a vast starfield, filled with galaxies, nebula, enormous star nurseries, and pockets of individual stars locked into their solo, cosmic paths._

_Outside the walls of the hogan were all of creation in swaths of light and colour and running somewhere thru it was a stream. They could hear it but not see it. It murmured and whispered to them almost out of earshot, it smelled green and lush and so much like the stream by their campsite._

_Standing up and shaking loose the cool desert air from her skin and bones, Manaba gestured for them to follow her outside. Oliver followed Felicity out and onto a faintly visible pathway. It wound itself around the stars and threaded through the galaxies. Its waters reflected the pinpoints of light that rose in the sky around them._

_Somewhere, far off in the distance beneath the cold light of stars that lived on the edge of the Universe, Coyote howled her farewell._

_Felicity stopped and turned to look at Manaba, who was waiting near her hogan, and took the older woman’s into her arms in a tight embrace._

_“Thank you, Manaba,” she whispered into her ear before planting a kiss on her weathered cheek, “I’ll never forget you.”_

_Manaba returned her hug and whispered, “When you get into the current in the middle of the creek, look to the farthest horizon and swim towards the green.”_ _Taking Felicity’s face between her cool dry hands, Manaba committed her face to memory, gently kissed her forehead and sent her to the water’s edge._

_Oliver had hung back, uncertain if he should follow Felicity back to hogan, and waited to see if Manaba would call him back._

_Instead, she crossed the space between them with determination and grace._

_“You,” she began almost sternly, “I will never forget. You follow her, you understand me?”_

_Oliver smiled in answer. He knew exactly what she was saying to him and he had every intention of doing just that._

_Manaba wrapped him in a hug and held him tight for just a moment, resting her head on his broad chest so that she could listen to his heart beat. It was so steady, so strong. He had survived so many horrors and so much pain and yet, here he stood so steadfast and true._

_Gently, Oliver pressed a kiss to the top of her head, “I don’t know how you found us, but I am glad you did.”_

_Oh, Manaba thought, this one with his deep blue eyes and powerful spirit, he would have been welcome in her hogan when she was a young woman. She could feel the energy he carried, it vibrated through him like an earthquake. Even the gentle kiss he had pressed into her forehead throbbed and rumbled!_

_“Go on,” she laughed, “go wash yourself clean. Be sure to follow the current and the Sun Woman. Take possession of your life, Warrior, live it instead of it living you.”_

_With those final words, she turned around and walked slowly back into her hogan and began to sing a quiet chant similar to the one she sang right before the wall_ _faded from view._

_“Be sure to ignore whatever Coyote tries to tell you!” She called to them._   
_“That trickster is always looking to mess you up. She does it to amuse herself but she can lay waste to your world if you aren’t careful!”_

_And with that last warning, the hogan realigned itself and blinked out of existence, leaving Oliver and Felicity alone under a canopy of stars._


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Manaba leaves Oliver and Felicity with instructions on how to get home and sends them into the cosmic stream.

** **

 

**Chapter Eight**

_and tumbling down_  
_the ragged path_  
_the beginning appears._

 

I

Felicity stood carefully on the banks of the creek. It was hard to see where to step in the dim, blue starlight and she was afraid of falling into the dark waters just a few feet from her.

Oliver stepped behind her and wrapped her in his arms. She loved the feel of him, the smell of him, the way he provided such safety simply by holding her. Taking hold of his hands, she turned them outward so that she could see his palms.

They were scar free for the most part and calloused from years of hard training and archery. But she loved them. She loved how his fingertips felt as they traced her curves and soft corners. They worshipped her with every stroke, with every tender touch, and she loved him with an intensity that burned her from the inside out.

Tenderly, she placed a soft kiss in the centre of each of his palms. She lingered above each one just long enough to feel the way his breath would change and his hold on her increased. She could feel the heat between their bodies turn electric with desire and smiled. The need, the want, the deep yearning they had for each other grew stronger every day.

Together, they stepped into the creek and felt the gentle pull of the current in the shallow waters near the bank. The water was cool and soft and smelled so much like earth and trees. Felicity slowly removed her clothes and left them beside the creek. Oliver followed her lead as he suspected Manaba was still watching and he did not want to disappoint her.

Together, hand in hand, they walked further into the creek until the water was up past Felicity’s waist.

“Uh, Felicity,” Oliver began, “I’m feeling a little...exposed out here.”

Felicity looked over at him, with the water just barely to the bottom of his butt, and laughed her musical, carefree laugh, then dove under the surface of the water and rose up from its inky depths close to the centre of the creek.

“Come on, Oliver,” she called softly, her voice full of wonder, “you have to see the sky…”

“Is the bottom rocky? I can’t see it in this dim light.”  
“No, it is smooth and sandy.”

So Oliver dove under the black water’s surface and found his way to Felicity's side. The water bubbled over his body, ticklish in the slow current, and he was surprised to find how clear the water was in the dim starlight.

Then he looked up.

And up.

And UP.

The stars were thick and dense across every inch of the sky above them. They reflected like diamonds off of the rippling surface of the dark waters; they surrounded them in this alien landscape.

Off in the distance, they could hear Coyote pawing at the ground and whining. She was dancing by herself at the horizon’s edge, just like Manaba had said she would.

“So, now what?” Oliver asked.  
“We are supposed to follow the green. I have no idea what that is but I assume we’ll know it when we see it. For now,” Felicity answered, wrapping herself around him, “ let’s do as she said and cleanse ourselves.”  
“Felicity,” Oliver growled low and deep, “I don’t think that she had this in mind when she suggested it.”

Laughing at his sudden shyness, she took that moment to place a gentle kiss over his heart and then pushed off of him to go even further into the creek.

“It is so peaceful out here,” she mused, “let’s stay for a while longer. ‘ _We are a way for the cosmos to know itself_.’ ”  
“Hmmmm?” he looked at her with a questioning look.  
“Nothing, just something I read in a Carl Sagan book a lifetime ago…”

Oliver swam lazily over and joined her, marvelling at the swaths of stars that hummed and shone all around them. The current was gentle but insistent, slowly carrying them downstream.

“So what do you think ‘the green’ is?,” Felicity asked, “I should have asked Manaba what she meant but I was still thinking about how our skin basically exploded in light! It was like you were a lantern and I was Storm from The XMen!”

Before Oliver could answer, Felicity’s eyes grew wide in alarm and she swam back to him, gripping onto him as tightly as she could.

“Oliver...where did the creek banks go?”

From the shelter of his arms, Felicity tried to find a glimpse of land but all she could see was the rippling water and reflecting cosmic sky. The land had vanished, Coyote had gone silent and the air was growing cooler. Before she could say anything, the current grew more turbulent and quicker, almost tearing them apart.

From her vantage point, Felicity was the first to see the object rising downstream from them. It rose like the sun but it was green and blue. It was rising and growing larger with each passing second.

“Oliver...how do we get there?”

“I don’t know but something tells me we just need to let the current carry us to it.”

“Will we be safe? If we fall…”

“We’ll be safe, love, she wouldn’t put us in danger by telling us to get in the creek if it was unsafe.”

“What should we do? Should we swim to it or let the current take us?”

“Let’s...just enjoy where we are.”

Felicity felt the warmth of Oliver’s words, his breath on her neck and decided that yes, this was exactly the right spot and thing to do. The water was silky and just so smooth as it rolled over them. She felt rejuvenated in its current. Even Oliver’s rough and textured skin felt like velvet pressed against her.

She had no way to contextualize this experience but through it all she felt a deeper, more intimate connection growing with this amazing man who was so effortlessly keeping them both afloat. Sometimes his strength left her breathless but right now it filled her with a sense of wonder and love.

She could easily spend eternity under the endless expanse of the Universe with him.

The current was becoming more insistent, pulling on them with greater urgency and force. Off in the distance, below the edge of the Universe, a soft rumbling could be heard. It was gentle and deep and felt like a lullaby, and Felicity started to drift off as she listened to it.

“Um, Felicity…you better hold on to me as tightly as you can,” Oliver said as he grasped what was happening. He instinctively tightened his arms around her, anchoring his body to hers.

“Why?” She asked. There was something unsettling in his tone of voice so she wrapped her arms around him.

“Because things are about to get...a little rough.”

And just as he was finished speaking, the waters around them turned turbulent and began to roil and toss them in a violent current and just as they were about to lose their hold on each other, they were weightless and flying over the edge of a waterfall the size of a galaxy.

But they remained in each other’s arms, even as the speed of their descent increased and the water hit them with increasing force. Felicity gripped Oliver with all of her might as their velocity spun them helplessly through the cosmic sky.

The last thing Felicity saw was how Oliver looked at her as though she were the only thing in creation. She pressed her forehead to his and looked into his eyes. From deep within him, from a place where only peace had touched, she saw his true self emerge and with every cell in her body she welcomed him home.

And then it was like someone had gently snuffed out a candle as everything went dark.

 

II

Oliver was surprised by how cool and gentle the water was when he stepped into the gentle current. The bottom of the creek was sandy and but firm under his feet.

But he was very naked and felt very exposed. The stars pressed down on him with increasing force and what he wanted to do was hide beneath the surface of the water.

Felicity looked so at home in the inky current of the creek. The water flowed over her like mercury and she gleamed in a soft silver light beneath the shimmery blue glow of the Universe. He loved her with everything he was and felt so unworthy of her.

Until she turned to smile at him. His heart soared and he glowed back at her with all the love he felt within him. She made no demands of him, she loved him completely as he was and he felt like the earth shifted under his feet whenever she looked at him with so much love, it was as though it was bursting out of her.

Somewhere, in the time it took him to swim to her, the creek expanded and became an ocean. The land, if that was indeed land they were on in the hogan, had disappeared.

But the sky...it was like they had waded onto a stream of stars. The closer they got to the watery horizon, the less able he was to figure out what was a reflection and what was an actual star.

He was humbled and awed by the show the Universe was putting on for them. Coyote was doing exactly as Manaba had said, she was dancing with abandon just above the cosmic horizon. Oliver still felt the primal pull of Coyote’s howl and dance and he envied her fierce freedom.

He delighted in Felicity’s joy in the feel of the water, the way her skin felt pressed to his and how she trusted him to keep them safe in the embrace of the dark waters.

His first inkling that something was amiss was when he felt a small wave hit his back. There shouldn’t be any waves, he thought, the creek or ocean was moving at a steady, gentle pace. There shouldn’t be any waves to push at them.

And then he heard it. The soft, whispery rumble somewhere far off in the distance but slowly getting closer. He knew that sound and it was nothing good.

Calling her to him, he wrapped her in a tight embrace.

“Hold on, my love,” he whispered in her ear, “hold on and do not let go. No matter what, do not let go.”

He remembered tumbling through the screaming roar of the waterfall, holding Felicity to him as tightly as he could. He remembered being tossed and turned in the turbulent current and Felicity’s screaming in his ears. He heard Coyote howling a long and mournful farewell to him.

The last thing Oliver saw was how Felicity looked at him as though he were the only thing in creation. He pressed his forehead to hers and looked into her eyes. From deep within her, from a place where only peace had touched, he saw her true self emerge and with every cell in his body he welcomed her home.

And then it was like someone had gently snuffed out a candle as everything went dark.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver and Felicity return to this world and wake up. They spend time reconnecting in an intense and physical way. They also prepare to leave the desert and say good bye to Manaba.

**Chapter Nine**

_She sees him_   
_With new eyes_   
_In an timeless story._

 

I

He opened his eyes to a uniform grey of shadows that blended together in the pale moonlight. The edge of the horizon, that seam where the earth joins the sky, was changing from inky black to deep indigo in colour. Soon the desert would start coming back to life around them.

Felicity stirred quietly next to him, drawing his attention away from the environment around them.

Reaching across the distance between them, he tenderly swept the hair from her face. She was watching him with a gentle intensity like she was attempting to memorize his face in the dim predawn light.

“Hey,” he broke into a huge smile as his quiet voice filled the silence in the tent.

“Hey,” she answered with a warm smile of her own.

Oliver’s hand continued its journey down the gentle slope of Felicity’s face, tracing the contours of her cheek, down the curve of her neck and across her exposed shoulder.

Slowly, as naturally as breathing, she edged into his embrace. While he traced gentle circles on her back, she wound her top leg over his hip and pulled herself even closer to him, as though trying to merge her body into his.

He loved the way she felt so supple and soft under his hands. She tucked her head under his chin and he could feel her warm breath on his chest. There was a faint smell of ozone and piñon smoke clinging to her hair and skin which brought their shared dream flooding back.

“Who was she, Oliver?”  
“Manaba? I don’t know. I honestly don’t know if she was actually real.”  
“She was beautiful.”  
“Yes, she was. And kind.”  
“Oliver?”  
“Hmmm?”  
“I don’t think we’ll never see her again. I think she is tied to this place, like in a forever, she is haunting the cliffside kind of way,” she mused while tracing the deep scars on his back with her fingertips.

“Do you believe her about us?” Oliver murmured into her hair, breathing the scent of her deep into his lungs.

Felicity tilted her head back and gazed into Oliver’s eyes and said, “After all that I have seen with you, from the Magic Hot Tub at Sandals Parbat to everything in Central City with Barry “The Flash” Allen, I would be hard pressed to not believe. I do believe her though, I can feel the truth of it in my heart. It was written under our skin.”

“I haven’t shown you what I really brought you out here to see.”  
“What??? There’s more? Imagine that! Oliver Queen with yet another surprise!”

His gentle touch shifted slightly until he found that one spot under her ribcage that sent her into peals of laughter.

“Stop! Stop! Ok, I give!” She gasped. “I never should have told you about that spot.”  
“I would have found it eventually,” he laughed.  
“Ok, so show me. What is it you brought me all the way out here to see?”

Turning to look up through the mesh roof of their tent, Oliver extended his arm and pointed to faint star that was just barely visible to the naked eye.

“I brought a small telescope for us to look at that but I think we actually got to see it close up in Manaba’s hogan.”“You mean that nebula she gave you? That one that looked kinda like Jupiter?”“Yeah, it is actually called the Ghost of Jupiter. Once every 50 years or so, Jupiter passes almost directly beside it and seen together, they are nearly identical in size and appearance. My dad described it to me once and I have always wanted to see them together up there and more than anything, I wanted to share them with you like a kind of gift.”"So...you wanted to give me a piece of the Universe as a gift?” She asked, her voice full of awe and wonder.  
“Yeah, but it was Manaba that really made that happen for both us, I guess.”  
“She helped but it was you that brought us to her. To this place. She placed that nebula in your hand so that you could show me here, now. Oliver, thank you. Thank you for all of this.”

Oliver tightened his arms around her and gently lowered his head, seeking out her lips. With a happy sigh, she smiled into the kiss he was searching so lovingly for. He was unexpectedly tender with her and it caused a cascading warmth to spread throughout her body.

With a gentle sweep of his tongue along her bottom lip, he teased her mouth open. It was this small moment that he savoured most of all, when she opened up for him and moved her tongue in synchronicity with his. Oliver could taste the Universe on her lips.

He continued to slowly move his hands in spiralling patterns on her back, her hips, down her leg and gently back up along a different pathway. Her body was humming and she was slowly rotating her hips against him.

There was no urgency to their explorations. He gently sucked her bottom lip and she gasped softly while he hands traced fire across her lower back. He could feel the heat rising from her core but he remained almost languid in his caresses.

She matched his deliberately slow and gentle pace. Her fingertips lightly traced the arrowhead so cruelly burned into his back. She always paid such close attention it.

It was healed but the scar tissue was still smooth and hot to the touch from the branding iron Ra’s had used. Newly formed ridges surfaced from time to time, like something was growing under his skin, and he had come to love the way she would find and trace them before she would let her hands drift lower down his back.

For a moment, he felt like they were back in the warm, black waters of the dreamspace creek and rolling on the soft current. The slow motion timing of their movements felt like the gentle surge of the waves that had lapped at their bodies.

He felt her fingernails gently scratch his lower back and his body reacted on its own accord. The sinuous movement of her hips, the softness of her tongue as it danced around his, and the feel of her body as it pressed against his caused a surge of such intense desire in him it left him breathless. His erection was becoming a source of blissful pain as it nestled into her wondrous cleft.

Burying his face in the crook of her neck, he took a moment to centre himself, calmed his breathing, and tenderly nuzzle the delicate skin near the base of her throat. When he heard her low moan, he pulled back slightly to take her in.

Even in the darkness, she was radiant. He didn’t need light to know that her face would have a slight flush of colour, that her eyes would be a dark, thunderous grey instead of their normal deep, azure blue. In this moment, all he needed was to feel her breath on his skin and the quickening beat of her heart.

The movement of her hips was becoming more insistent while still retaining the slow, sybaritic pace he had established early on. He could feel how ready she was, how wet she was, but she made no move to join their bodies.

Threading his fingers through her hair, he pulled her into another deep, searching kiss, deliberately taking her breath away so that when he finally entered her with a satiny leisurely push, all she was able to do was tighten their embrace.

It was as though they were riding a tsunami in slow motion. Nothing they did was hurried, from the way they had joined their bodies together to the way they now rocked gently in unison. The friction and heat grew between them, building with a fierce energy that threatened to consume them both but still, the remained locked in a tranquil rhythm.

Just as he lowered his lips to the pulse point in her neck, he felt her tighten around him. He was buried deep inside her when she began to throb around him with a exquisite tempo. Her breath quickened as she slowly passed the point of no return and lost herself in a space of pure ecstasy.

His senses were ablaze. He could feel her hard nipples against his chest, her breath across his neck, the way her lips felt as she sucked on his lower lip, the soft sweep of her tongue as she explored the inside of his mouth, the way her leg tightened its grip around him and pulled him closer so there was no space between them. But most of all, he could feel when her body crested the wave they were riding together as she flexed ever so gently into him.

“Oh God, Oliver…” she gasped, “I love you…”

And then she fell silent as her orgasm rocked through her in a series of waves that seemed to gain in power. Her hold on him increased as he tried to still himself while deep inside her. He could feel himself swelling, knowing that soon he would join her on that elegant wave.

Her hips undulated against his in a series of circular beats that pulled him deeper into her body. He needed no more encouragement. Losing all resolve he allowed her to pull him to his own release and he came, spurting hot and spasming, as she clamped down around his still throbbing erection.

His mind went blank and he felt as though his brain was dissolving, fracturing, rearranging itself in a dreamlike space where their souls were joined.

“God, Felicity, you are amazing,” he breathed.  
Felicity laughed softly as she laid her head against his heaving chest just as sleep reached for her, “Say you love me.”  
“Felicity Smoak, I _love_ you. More and more each day,” he murmured into the top of her hair just as sleep claimed him.

_A delicate rush of air blew past their tent moments after they had entered an easy slumber and scattered the coloured grains of story sand back out into the still desert. From somewhere nearby, the subdued yips of Coyote called out seeking the Trickster in the tent. When she received no answer, she softly padded past the sleeping pair and followed the story back to its beginning._

 

II

_Manaba made her way slowly back to the other world. She was happy in the spirit world where she could see her family and sit and talk to Coyote. She knew she had a long walk back to her home on the mesa and wasn’t sure she was up to it._

_Moving back and forth between the spaces of stars and earth took so much energy. She could feel herself drifting, fading in and out._

_Enough, she thought sharply, you need to get yourself together and make sure those two got back in one piece. Sometimes coming back to the world through the shadow of the old one was treacherous._

_It took sometime but she eventually stepped out from the shadow of dream and into the cool desert night beneath a cloudless sky. She could see their tent and hear their breathing as they slept._

_Manaba smiled. They were safe and undoubtedly in each other’s arms. There was so much love between them. He just needed to keep his heart unlocked and they would be as happy together now as they had been all those other times before._

_With considerable effort, Manaba crossed the canyon floor with the assistance of the moon. It’s cold light illuminated the well worn path from the kiva to her special ledge._

_I should be able to reach it before sunrise, she thought, then the sun can warm these old bones. Make that deep ache go away, if only for just a little while._

_The old ones, the ones who wailed inconsolably throughout the night, were shuffling back to their beds. Some were exhausted and kept having to stop for rest, others were angry and moving quickly past her. Manaba just shook her head in amusement. They all needed to get back to their homes one way or the other so she stopped to help those in need whenever she could._

_She hoped she would see the Warrior and Sun Woman before they left her world forever. She felt so blessed to have been the one to share with them the story of who they were in the past, who they were now and, in all likelihood, in the future._

_Time would tell, she thought as she settled into her resting place, even if Coyote kept sending up trouble to get in their way from time to time._

_As if she could hear Manaba’s thoughts, Coyote howled a long mournful song up to the heavens and called out to her sisters in the sky. She danced just below the horizon to her own echo as the sun warmed the edges of the earth._

_Manaba, though she was weary, smiled at Coyote’s disappearing shadow. Never a dull moment with that one, she thought._

_And sleep washed over her, blotting out the world._

 

III

Felicity awoke to the heat of the mid-morning sun as it radiated off of the cliffside. She could smell the juniper bushes and campfire. Once again, Oliver had awoken first and was making her breakfast.

“Hey, Felicity?” Oliver called out.

“Yeah?”

“Let’s go have a bath in the creek.”

“Now?”

“Yeah, the sun will have warmed it up by now.”

“What about breakfast? Won’t it get cold?”

“We can eat on the way.”

Felicity opened up the tent door as she looked for her clothes from the night before.

“I have your clothes,” Oliver said as he walked back to the tent, “we can walk over in our underwear.”

Cocking an eyebrow at him, Felicity laughed, “I’m not wearing any!”

“Well...”

He had to duck out of the way as her hiking boot sailed out of the small confines of the tent like a missile towards his head.

“Come on, Smoak! Let’s go clean up, you can use the big towel,” he laughed as he handed her a breakfast wrap and bath towel.

Hand in hand, they walked the path to the creek. Felicity was struggling to keep the towel wrapped securely around her causing Oliver to burst out laughing. Which was getting dangerous as he was attempting to eat his breakfast at the same time.

“Oliver Jonas Queen, I fracking swear, you will regret laughing at me. This is a face cloth not a bath towel!”

Casting a quick glance at her and seeing her gripping the towel with all her might, was not the smartest thing he could have done at that moment. Her determined face, coupled with the half eaten burrito in her hand, caused a huge peal of laughter to bubble out of him.

“Oliver…”

“I can’t help it!” He laughed helplessly, “You should see you!”

“You are lucky we are at the creek,” she grumbled.  
Oliver chuckled as he took off his shoes and shorts, he turned to ask her if she needed a hand with her towel and stopped dead in his tracks.

She was standing a small ways behind him with her towel folded in her hands watching him. The sunlight that streamed in all around them was golden and alive and it held her in its warm embrace, making it look like she was glowing from somewhere deep within.

She took his breath away. He honestly couldn’t remember ever seeing a more beautiful woman. He doubted he ever would.

Silently, he reached out for her hand and together they waded into the desert creek whose current was still calm. Oliver held her in his arms as they let the cool water wash over them.

Felicity allowed him to wash her hair and he allowed her to wash his body. Their laughter carried out over the desert floor as they reconnected in the clear water. They stayed as long as they dared in their private oasis but the day was wasting and they had a long way to go before nightfall.

 

IV

_Manaba awoke sometime in the late afternoon. The sun was slanting low in the sky but it was warming up her resting place. She could feel the cold slowly loosening from her bones._

_It is taking longer and longer for me to truly wake up, she thought, it might be time for me to pass through into the shadow of the next world._

_Coyote whispered to her, trying to tell her something._

_Manaba was puzzled. Coyote never whispered when she could howl and she never howled when she could sing. Something wasn’t right, nope, something wasn’t right at all._

_It was then that she heard the Sun Woman laughing from somewhere close by._

_Oh, thank goodness, she thought, they have made it to the top of the mesa! They will be heading home soon. Away from here._

_Her heart was full of a sudden sadness at the thought of never seeing their earthly bodies again. She would always see them when she looked up into the sky at night, but they were both so warm, so beautiful, so full of life! She was so glad that they had found each other in this world._

_She listened for Coyote, who was still whispering at her. She was asking her to come and sing with her and her sisters. She was showing her the pathway through the black spaces between the stars, showing her the way home._

_With a deep breath, Manaba nestled deeper into her resting place, drawing her knees up to her chest, and accepted Coyote’s invitation._

_Farewell, my golden ones, she thought in her final moment in the shadow of this world, maybe I'll see you in the next._

_And like a whirlwind, she spun across the desert and danced off into the sky._

 

V

 

Oliver was climbing up the last little ridge to reach the top of the mesa when his foot got caught in between two small rocks on the narrow path he was exploring. He had just enough time to reach out to the rock face to steady himself in order to avoid a nasty fall into hidden crevice.

Later he couldn’t say what it was that made him stop to look into it but something told him to stop and turn his head. What he saw rocked him to his core.

“Felicity…” he called out quietly, “I need you to come here…”

“Why? What’s up?”

In answer, he reached out behind him for her hand to help her up the last few feet. The path he was exploring was not an easy one, he doubted it had been used much in the last century but his battle trained eyes had spotted it in the slanting rays of the evening sun.

He wasn’t sure if what he was seeing in the crevice was real and needed her to see it with him. It looked like a skeleton wrapped in decaying fabric made of grass or reeds.

“Look in here. Are you seeing what I am seeing, too?”

Felicity came up beside him, curious about what he was seeing, and looked into the crevice.

“Is...I mean...Oliver, is that a skeleton?” She gulped.

“I think it is.”

“Look at...are those beads? Are those turquoise beads by the skull?”

“I think so. And look at the shriveled piece of leather around the neck. I think that is the remains of a leather pouch.”

Felicity gripped his arm with a sudden fierceness. He heard her sharp intake of breath as she spotted the thin strands of white hair that still clung to the sides of the skull.

“Oliver,” she hissed, “I think it’s Manaba!”

Gently, Oliver wrapped an arm around Felicity’s shoulders and pulled her close to him. He could smell the lavender soap in her hair from their bath in the creek earlier that morning and faint traces of juniper and piñon on her skin from their hike back up the mesa.

“I think it is her. I think she has been here a long time,” he said quietly.

She was in the perfect place, he thought. You couldn’t see the crevice from the top of the mesa during the day and coming up you would have to basically fall into it in order to see it.

He had stumbled at just the right spot and had turned his head at just the right moment. Another couple of seconds and he would have walked right past her, leaving her to her eternal rest undisturbed.

“We should protect her. Maybe move that rock over a bit or add a couple big ones,” Felicity suggested.

“I think she is fine,” Oliver said reassuringly, “if we move anything, we’ll block her view of where she used to live.”

Felicity smiled up at him. He was right. Manaba’s final resting spot had a clear view of the cliffside and kiva. She wondered if Manaba was there with them now, just out of sight in the shadows made by the boulders and rocks.

“We should get going,” she said quietly, “and leave Manaba to her rest.”

But they stood quietly, locked in a tender embrace and said their silent, love-filled goodbyes to the bones of a woman they had met while spirited away in another world. One where they listened to their celestial story and saw their eternal place in the Universe.

The sun slipped lower in the sky, stretching out their shadows, urging them onward.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter in this part of the story as Oliver and Felicity return to normal life, well, as normal as their life can be.  
> This is more like a coda that sets up the next leg of their journey where the after effects of their time in the cosmos will truly come into play.

**Chapter Ten**

_The story pauses_  
_Searching for an echo_  
_But Coyote chooses to dance_

That night in their tiny cabin, after another candlelit bath in the cast iron and enamel tub, they lay quietly in the cabin’s massive bed watching the fire as it slowly burnt itself out.

Neither one of them wanted to leave the side of the other in order to lay another log on the smouldering remains of the last. The night was cold at this elevation but their body heat was more than enough at the moment.

Felicity tried to move her legs and winced. The hike back to the jeep had been harder than she thought it was going to be. Oliver had massaged her calf muscles and tried to relieve the knots that kept forming but nothing short of Lian Yu magic potion #9 was going to keep them from reforming, she thought grimly.

“Promise me you will leave me at home the next time you get the urge to go camping,” she sighed wearily.

She felt Oliver’s chest rumble against her back. She loved the way his laugh felt and sounded. It was like he was saying ‘I love you’ over and over with each chuckle and laugh.

She went to flex her toes and a knot the size of her fist popped out of her left calf muscle. She immediately let out a shout and began to writhe in absolute agony.

All she remembered later was Oliver’s strong hands pulling her leg straight and forcing her to flex her foot as he pressed his thumbs directly into the knot and held them there until it loosened and subsided.

“Oliver,” she gasped, “I really hate hiking.”

She heard his laugh from across the room. Without opening her eyes, she listened to him laying down a new log before crossing to the sink in the kitchenette.

“Here, have some more water. You are dehydrated which is why the knot keeps coming back.”

With an exaggerated moan, Felicity reluctantly sat up and took the water glass from Oliver before he turned back to tend the fire. He was irritatingly right, she was dehydrated from the long day. He was a survivor of events that would have killed a lesser man, but sometimes she wished she could get the better of him in an environment not dominated by computers and technology.

Wait, she thought as she studied his etched back, I know how to best him.

“Thanks, hon,” she said, “here’s the glass.”

When he turned around, he froze in his tracks. She had let the sheet slip down to her waist in order to reveal her nude form. The fire, with its newfound strength, was bathing her in a molten, flickering light. There were times he thought she looked like a Goddess, but in this light she looked like she did when they sat in front of Manaba’s fire in her hogan.

Her beauty was timeless and his love for her transcended all of time and space. His breath caught in his throat and his body betrayed his desire for her in the few short steps between the fireplace and bed.

In the quiet hours after midnight, long after the frenzied heat of passion had been satiated, Felicity continued to lazily trace the shape of their constellations on Oliver’s skin.

“Felicity?” Oliver mumbled softly.  
“Hmmm?”  
“How about we go somewhere warm and tropical next.”  
“I’ll go anywhere so long as it is with you.”

Oliver smiled down at her, his heart swelling with love, and he quietly asked, “How about Bali?”

 

 

** To Be Continued... **

**Author's Note:**

> Notes and Pronunciation Guide 
> 
> Navajo Names, Pronunciations, Translation and Constellation (or Star)
> 
> 1\. Náhookòs Bi’kà’  
> \- Na-hoe-kos Bih-ka  
> \- Male Revolving One With Bow & Arrow  
> \- Big Dipper
> 
> 2\. Náhookòs Bi’áád  
> \- Na-ho-kos Bih-aad  
> \- Female Revolving One with Fire in Basket  
> \- Cassiopeia 
> 
> 3\. Náhookòs Bikò‘  
> \- Na-hoe-kos Bih-kwo  
> \- Central Fire  
> \- Coyote Polaris, North Star
> 
> 4\. Ma’ii*  
> \- Mah-ee  
> \- Coyote Tossing The Stars  
> \- Canopus
> 
> 5\. Ma’ii Bizò‘  
> \- Mah-ee Bih-zon  
> \- Coyote  
> \- Coyote Star, Canopus
> 
> *There are four Coyote stars, one in each direction.
> 
> Science Stuff & Indigenous Info
> 
> I played fast and loose and took artistic license with the Navajo story I am telling here. It is based on one told to me, years and years ago, by a Navajo elder in Shiprock, NM. I have a lot of family in New Mexico and Colorado and friends on the reservation (although I am Lakota/Ojibwe not Navajo) and an intimate knowledge of the area. I love the desert and go back as often as I can.
> 
> I changed up a lot from what was told to me (out of respect for some of the deeper knowledge in the story told to me), but kept the spirit of the story true. It is about creation, the placement of the stars beginning with Polaris and it is about love.
> 
> As for the Ghost of Jupiter, I have no idea if it ever passes behind the planet but it does resemble Jupiter when viewed through a telescope (if it is a weak one, powerful telescopes show it to look a lot differently than when it was first spotted in the 1600's).


End file.
